


the love that you gave

by Teeelsie



Series: the love that you gave 'Verse [1]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, Established Relationship, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Infidelity, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, but it takes a while to get there, no easy answers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-06 14:13:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 68,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4224795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teeelsie/pseuds/Teeelsie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Danny doesn’t know why he hasn’t left, but it’s like his feet have grown roots and he can’t move; he has no idea how long he stares before Cath languidly turns her head and finally sees him.  She startles and starts to yell, but cuts it off quickly with a hand to her mouth when she recognizes that it is Danny standing in the doorway.  Steve’s head whips to the side as he registers her reaction, and when he spots his partner, his eyes go wide as he moves to sit up and pull the sheet over his visible corruption."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And I'm here... to remind you...

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes an idea for a fic will grip you and not let you go, and you can fight it, but in the end, you just have to get it out. This is one of those fics for me. I’ve been thinking about and toying with this fic for several months and I finally just had to put it on paper. I suspect it is not going to be a well-loved fic, but for me, in the end, you have to write fic for yourself and no one else. 
> 
> I can tell you that Steve and Danny will end up together, so if you want to give it a go, you can at least know that I won’t kick you in the teeth at the end, but getting there may not be a joyride and it's most definitely not going to be my usual sappy love story. These boys love each other for sure, but they will have some obstacles to overcome...
> 
> Oh, and for the purposes of this fic, 2 things: this fic goes AU (sort of) after Steve tells Aunt Deb that Catherine called things off with him (s5e8) – just in the sense that none of the stuff with Rachel and Charlie or Amberlissa ever happened; and, Danny and Rachel never had an affair in S1... cuz this just wouldn't work if they had. And it’s my fic, and I can do what I want! ; )
> 
> Story and chapter titles taken from lyrics to the song, 'You Oughta Know', by Alanis Morissette.
> 
> And, finally, thanks, as always, to my beta, KippyVee

 

 

Sunday, September 20, 2015

 

As Danny pulls into the driveway of the house on Piikoi Street, he notices an unfamiliar car parked at the curb and Steve’s truck in the driveway. He glances at it with a little confusion, and as he walks past, he puts his hand out to touch the hood for a second, finding it cold. Danny’s surprised because when he left forty-five minutes ago, Steve was loading three surf boards into the back of his truck (they’re still there) and he had said he would be leaving right behind Danny. It had been a long time since Steve and Kono had had a chance to get out and surf together and the two of them had been talking all week about their plan to meet this morning, so Danny didn’t think Steve would have just blown it off.

 

He, himself, had gone to pick up Grace; it was hand-off day and Danny was supposed to get Grace and take her to cheer practice on the other side of town. The plan was for them to pick up lunch afterward and meet Steve and Kono at the beach later – maybe all of them surfing together in the afternoon if the waves held. But when Danny had gotten to Rachel’s house, he found Grace and Charlie both down with some sort of nasty stomach bug, and Danny and Rachel had agreed that it would be best to leave Grace where she was for at least another night rather than dragging the very sick little girl from one house to the other.

 

Danny pulls out his key for the front door but stops short when he finds it is unlocked and slightly ajar; his spidey-sense kicks into gear. He gently eases the door open further and spies a small duffle bag just inside and some magazines that had been on the table now scattered on the floor in the living room. Immediately on high alert, Danny slides his gun out of his holster and quietly slips through the door. He leads with his weapon, body already singing with adrenalin, and creeps through the living room, looking for more signs of anything out of the ordinary.

 

Danny moves stealthily through the first floor of the house, clearing each room as he goes. Once he’s sure that nothing is amiss there, he moves toward the stairs, stopping to listen. He thinks he might hear a small noise, but now it’s gone… so he moves slowly and silently up the stairs, gun at the ready, body wired and tense. When he gets to the top of the stairs, he darts a quick glance around the corner to see that all the doors off of the hallway are open except for the master bedroom. He moves smoothly over to it and puts his ear up close, listening. He thinks he hears a small sound coming from inside, but he’s not sure.

 

Raising his gun up slightly in his right hand, Danny places his left carefully on the doorknob and turns it as quietly as possible. He cracks the door open, then pushes it slowly and incrementally, raising his gun higher as the room comes into view.

 

To say he is stunned by what he sees is an understatement of enormous proportions. The bed is positioned in the room so he has full view of it from the side, but it is no longer made-up with Steve’s military precision as it was when he left less than an hour ago. Instead, the bed is now in a state of disarray, and he can see Steve’s familiar body, naked (though half covered by the blue sheet) and rolling smoothly and rhythmically over another person, his face tucked into the other’s neck. It takes him about two seconds to register that it is Catherine, her long, brown hair and profile readily obvious to him. Danny recognizes the sound of Steve’s heavy breathing as he chases an orgasm, and he sees Catherine close her eyes and tilt her head back a little as the tempo of their fucking picks up and Steve’s hips snap harder and faster between her legs. Danny has to close his own eyes against the sight as he feels abruptly nauseous, and thinks it’s possible that he might actually vomit right then and there.

 

Rhythmic moans begin to pulse greedily from Catherine, and Danny’s eyes involuntarily snap open again at the sound, only to see her lithe body reaching up to meet Steve’s with every thrust. He finds that as much as he wants to, he cannot turn away as the movements on the bed become more frenzied – driving hard toward their inevitable conclusion. Danny can predict what will happen next: _Steve will begin to grunt with each pump of his hips and eventually he will groan into Cath’s neck and his hips will stutter and then he’ll freeze for a couple of seconds and then he’ll start to pump wildly again for a moment before he gasps and stops all together and collapses onto his partner._

 

Even so, Danny watches in a state of shock as these events unfold. Catherine’s noises eventually become even more insistent, and then Danny blinks rapidly as she arches her back and lets out a surprisingly soft _“AH!”_ (funny – Danny would have pegged her for more of a screamer…) and, a few seconds later, Steve completes his role in this horrific tableau. The only surprise comes a moment later when Steve rolls off of Catherine onto his back, rather than slumping off onto his side and wrapping his arm around her middle to pull her in close. But both of them certainly look utterly spent and satisfied, and their heavy panting is audible in the room – which is also painfully familiar to Danny.  

 

After he registers that, he realizes that Steve’s shifting has dragged the sheet off of both of their bodies and the bile rises up in Danny’s throat as he is confronted with the unobscured sight of the shiny, wet mess between Catherine’s splayed legs and Steve’s cock, lying limp but still plump in his thatch of damp, dark pubic hair.

 

Danny doesn’t know why he hasn’t left, but it’s like his feet have grown roots and he can’t move; he has no idea how long he stares before Cath languidly turns her head and finally sees him. She startles and starts to yell, but cuts it off quickly with a hand to her mouth when she recognizes that it is Danny standing in the doorway. Steve’s head whips to the side as he registers her reaction and he when spots his partner, his eyes go wide as he moves to sit up and pull the sheet over his visible corruption.

 

“Danny…” Steve says, his voice full of shock and panic.

 

“Danny!” Cath says simultaneously, though her voice is filled with embarrassment and nothing else. She too is pulling the sheet up over her exposed breasts (which are really quite lovely, Danny’s mind ridiculously supplies), and they look red and a little chafed, and Danny realizes that Steve’s mouth must have paid particular attention to them. He closes his eyes against the oppressive image of Steve groaning as he licks and bites at her soft breasts; sucking hard at her nipples with the same mouth that had expertly sucked him off in this very bed - not two hours before - and then kissed him tenderly through his haze so that he could taste himself on Steve’s lips.

 

When he opens his eyes again, he can see that Steve is torn between staying where he is and moving out from under the sheet so he can approach Danny, but knowing that moving will expose him again – as though that matters now. Meanwhile, Danny sees Steve’s eyes flick uneasily between his face and his hand, and Danny looks down to see that he still has his gun drawn and ready for the trouble he was expecting to find behind the bedroom door. He feels slightly maniacal and he has a fleeting thought that maybe he should pull the trigger and put himself out of his misery. But he isn’t entirely sure who he would shoot, so instead, he lowers his gun and wipes his left hand over his mouth, looking around the room absently and trying to figure out what, exactly, one should do in this situation.

 

Catherine is still shifting herself on the bed and hasn’t quite caught up with the tension in the room; when she gets herself completely covered, she finally turns her head back to him, running her hand through her hair and blushing. “Danny… it’s… good to see you,” she says, laughing a little.  

 

Danny’s mind is still struggling to make sense of it all and he can’t stop his eyes from darting from her face to her sheet-covered body as he manages to stammer out, “Uh… yeah… uh… sorry, Catherine… I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here… don’t let me interrupt.”

 

Danny feels ridiculous for having said that, but is amazed at how preternaturally calm he is as he finally holsters his gun and turns to leave, walking down the stairs as though there is nothing unusual about what has just happened. He feels detached from his body and thinks, distractedly, that he must be in a state of shock. Yes… it was shocking, after all, what he’d just seen. Shocking and vastly more-cruel than anything he’d ever thought Steve capable of – which was saying a lot considering he has witnessed Steve do some incredibly brutal things. Behind him, he can hear Steve finally jumping out of the bed and scrambling (probably to get some clothes on), and as Danny walks woodenly out the still-open front door, he hears Steve thundering down the stairs.

 

“Danny!” Steve yells frantically, though Danny ignores him and continues to walk toward the car. But Steve runs at him and grabs Danny’s arm, spinning him so they are facing each other. “Let me explain…”

 

Steve’s eyes are wild with what Danny thinks looks like fear, but it can’t be that because the two of them have faced life-threatening situations together many times and he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Steve look quite like this. Danny stops, frozen in his tracks, because he is feeling strangely numb and he can’t quite think straight and all he can do is look down at the foreign hand impeding his progress. As he stares at the grip on his arm, his mind conjures the unwanted image of those very fingers gliding inside Catherine’s slippery heat while she pants and writhes, her face twisted in ecstasy - and that’s all Danny needs for the spell to be broken so he can yank his arm free.

 

“What is there to explain? Huh? Steve? I don’t think I could have _possibly_ misinterpreted that!” he replies, almost yelling, but not quite, and hearing the anger that is finally seeping into his consciousness. He turns to head toward his car once more, reaching the door before Steve is grabbing at him again.

 

“Danny, please… don’t leave…” Steve pleads, sounding desperate.

 

“Don’t _leave_? _Seriously?_ ” Danny barks out a harsh, humorless laugh. “What do you want me to do, Steve? Stand here and wait for your girlfriend to get out of _our_ bed – where you just _fucked_ her - and come downstairs so we can all sit down and have a cup of coffee and a nice chat?”

 

“She’s not my girlfriend...” Steve replies weakly, but automatically - visibly wincing at the words as soon as they leave his mouth.

 

Danny snorts a disgusted laugh, but almost actually finds real humor in that. He rips his arm away again, this time getting in the Camaro before Steve can stop him. He throws the car into gear and hits the accelerator, backing out quickly, the tires screeching as he makes the turn out of the driveway. He shifts into drive and pushes the pedal hard under his right foot, and as he speeds away, he catches a glimpse of Catherine standing in the doorway, wearing (it looks like) nothing but Steve’s shirt and a perplexed expression on her face.

 

 


	2. ...of the mess you left...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to add a timeline on Chapter 1 - I've gone back and added it now. So, fyi, this fic starts in September, 2015 (probably right about the time of the S6 opener).

 

  

Catherine is more than a little embarrassed when she realizes that Danny has been watching them from the doorway – she wishes she knew how long he had been there so she would know just _how_ embarrassed to be. But as she looks at Danny and eventually – _finally_ – sees the gun in his hand and takes in the stunned and crumpled expression on his face, and then sees Steve’s odd reaction, it hits her that there is more going on here than she initially thought.

 

But then Steve is scrambling out of bed and throwing on his board shorts to chase after Danny, and Cath furrows her brow and sits for a minute trying to make sense of the last couple of minutes. She and Danny had been friends, and he certainly always knew about her and Steve’s friends-with-benefits arrangement, so what just happened seems… wrong. An uneasy feeling pulls at the back of her mind as she climbs out of the bed herself, grabbing Steve’s discarded t-shirt and throwing it over her head so she can hurry to follow the two men and find out what the hell is going on. By the time she makes it downstairs to the door, Steve is standing outside near his truck, looking frantic as Danny tears out of the driveway. Danny’s eyes catch hers for a spilt-second and she can see the hard, angry line of his mouth as he brutally shifts his car into first gear and roars away.

 

She takes a few steps back and stands in Steve’s living room, really taking it in for the first time since she arrived. She had surprised Steve less than an hour ago, arriving on his doorstep with a less-than-subtle, “Hi there, sailor,” as she dropped her small duffle bag inside the door. Steve barely had a chance to register his surprise at seeing her before she had wrapped her hands around the back of his neck and pulled him in for a scorching kiss; he had stumbled backward and knocked some magazines off the table, but neither had bothered to stop and pick them up. She bends down distractedly to do just that, thinking now that that stumble could have been an attempt at a retreat. He had definitely hesitated - not responding immediately as he always had in the past - but she hadn’t given it much thought at the time; she had thought that he was just shocked to see her.

 

Steve had broken the second kiss and asked her what she was doing there. She had smiled seductively and told him – quickly, as she started to unbutton her shirt - that she was on leave, and that while she knew neither of them was interested in renewing their previous relationship, that didn’t mean they couldn’t go back to their original arrangement. When she saw him hesitate, she’d stopped, cocked her head and asked - in all seriousness - if he had a new girlfriend, because she knew it was time to shut this down if he did.

 

“No, I… I don’t have a girlfriend,” Steve had stammered, and Catherine had taken that to mean he was fair game.

 

She had moved in again, and again Steve had hesitated. “What? Am I not your type anymore? Do you go for blondes now?” she had teased, one eyebrow cocked, trying to move them past what she perceived as the simple stumbling block of Steve’s surprise.

 

Catherine thought she saw a flicker of something cross Steve’s face, lightening quick, but then it was gone, and he had smirked at her and said, “Are you kidding? You know you’re my type.” And then he had finally dipped his head down and pushed his tongue into her mouth in that lovely, familiar way, causing her to smile into the kiss and give an appreciative little hum of approval. She didn’t question it anymore, since Steve’s tongue and hands were telling her everything she needed to know.

 

Convinced things were back to normal, she hastily pulled Steve up toward the master bedroom and aggressively stripped them both; she had been on a ship for the last six months, after all. Yes, there were a lot of willing sailors there, but shipboard romance was fraught with potential complications that she preferred to avoid, and Steve was… comfortable. They had talked a lot since her return from Afghanistan, and to active duty, and there were no hard feelings. And though they hadn’t specifically spoken of it, she had looked forward to the possibility of renewing their habit of casual hook-ups. It seemed that Steve did too, because once they made it to the bed, they fell easily into their old routine.

 

In retrospect, she realizes that things had been slightly _different_ : rather than kissing her, he had spent an inordinate amount of time and attention on her breasts, fondling and mouthing at them for long minutes; he hadn’t gone down on her, which they both had always enjoyed in the past, and which she’d rather missed; and things had maybe felt a bit mechanical as he fucked her, lacking their usual spark and passion. She didn’t give it much thought at the time – vaguely attributing it in the moment to their many months apart. Besides, ultimately, they’d both been more than satisfied, and he’d had her moaning decadently and reaching for the slats of the headboard as he pounded into her. She had come hard, and she smiled as his body stuttered above her and he gasped in pleasure as his orgasm hit. It had been fun – exactly what she’d been hoping for – until she had turned her head in her post-coital lethargy and nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw Danny staring at them with the oddest expression on his face and a gun in his hand.

 

Now, as she stands in the living room, she realizes for the first time that things are different in here. She hadn’t noticed earlier because she was so damn eager to get into Steve’s pants, but as she looks closely, she sees some new things scattered around: some furniture she recognizes from Danny’s house, and a surprising amount of pink for a bachelor. She’s such an idiot – she can’t believe she didn’t notice before – she’d been so horny that she’d had tunnel vision. But now… as she looks around and takes it all in… _now_ she is _angry_.

 

She turns when she hears Steve walk back in and shut the door quietly; he doesn’t turn to face her though, instead he leans his forehead against the door with his eyes closed.

 

“You want to tell me what that was about?” she asks, already pretty sure she knows, but wanting to hear it from him.

 

“Cath…” Steve starts, but then stops, never turning to look at her.

 

Catherine waits for him to continue but soon it is clear he’s not going to; she breaks the lingering silence after a couple of moments. “You two are together,” she says coldly; it’s a statement, not a question.

 

Steve turns and he leans his back against the door, but his eyes are still closed as though he can’t bring himself to look at her. He nods his head minutely.

 

“God, Steve! _What did you do?_ Did you actually just _cheat_ on Danny with me?”

 

But Steve doesn’t respond, continuing to lean on the door, looking small and broken; looking so not-like-Steve that she almost _– almost –_ feels sorry for him.

 

Catherine collapses into the chair next to her – one from Danny’s house, she realizes as she does. She stares at him as she tries to take in the implications of everything that is going on. “Jesus! Steve! How could you do that? To _him?_ To _me?_ ” she’s incredulous and horrified at the same time.

 

Steve just shakes his head, giving her no meaningful answer, causing Cath to virtually vibrate with fury. She’s never been this mad at Steve before; she’s not sure she’s ever been this mad in her _life_ before. What she and Steve always had in the past was casual, no strings attached - but it was always implicit that they never - _ever -_ hooked up if one of them was in a relationship – as rare as that may have been. When the two of them were in their own relationship, of sorts, before Afghanistan, it was understood that they were exclusive, and there was no question in her mind that Steve would be faithful – and vice versa. Steve had never done anything to cause her to question his fidelity – ever - so she is completely mystified by his behavior today.  

 

“How long have you two been together?” her words are clipped and she feels like they are strangling her as she pushes them out.

 

Steve finally opens his eyes and looks at Catherine. “Uh,” his voice catches and he has to clear his throat. “About nine months… since January,” he says - his voice little more than a whisper - and then his eyes shift away from her again, looking bleakly at the floor.

 

“Are you _kidding_ me? Christ!” Cath yells. “ _Nine months!_ I don’t understand… Steve, we’ve talked at least a dozen times since January… why didn’t you _tell_ me you two were together?! Nine months?!” her eyes are wide as she stares at him.

 

“I… I don’t know… I…” Steve replies haltingly, eyes darting back and forth and looking as guilty as ever.  

 

“God, Steve! Danny is my _friend_! He’s your… boyfriend… your _best_ friend! How _could_ you? How could you put me in this position? How could you do this to _him?_ ”

 

“Cath… I’m sorry…” Steve attempts, weakly.

 

“Save it,” she barks as she stands up, tired of his lack of substantive response. She pushes past him to go upstairs to get her things. “There’s no excuse in the world that would be good enough.”

 

When she gets back to the bedroom, she has to stop and sit on the bed for moment as she tries to come to terms with the duplicity that she has just unknowingly participated in. She notices, vaguely, that she is shaking and without warning fat tears start to roll down her cheeks. Catherine sits like that for a few moments and then takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, gathering her emotions and trying to stop the tears. As she composes herself, she looks down at the blue sheets and she is not helped by the fact that it occurs to her that they seem to exactly match the color of Danny’s eyes. They’re new – at least Catherine had never seen them before – and she wonders if Steve picked them for that very reason. She wouldn’t be surprised if he had... he always had a bit of a hidden, sentimental streak. As she rubs the top-sheet between her fingers thinking of the too-many times she’s seen Danny’s blue eyes look sorrowful, it suddenly hits her that this is Steve and _Danny’s_ bed, and she jumps up and starts swiftly gathering her things so she can get her clothes on and get the hell out of there.

 

Catherine is disgusted when she starts to slip on her panties and feels the sticky residue of Steve’s come combined with her own slippery wetness. She stops and bolts for the bathroom where she runs a washcloth under the water, not waiting for it to get warm, then scrubs between her legs as quickly and thoroughly as she can. When she’s done, she throws the washcloth on the floor and dresses as fast as possible, wiping the last of the tears from her face as she does.

 

When she rushes down the stairs a minute later, buttoning her shirt as she goes, she is still seething. She stops in front of Steve where he is now sitting on the couch with his face in his hands, hoping to get some better answers than he gave earlier.

 

“You really screwed up here, Steve,” Catherine says, pointing viciously at Steve, her words causing him to flinch but he doesn’t lift his face to look up at her. “I honestly can’t imagine how you could do this to Danny, but you need to fix it. God… this won’t just kill Danny, this could destroy the whole team! You get that, right? … I just hope to God Danny has it in him to forgive you.”

 

When he still doesn’t respond, Catherine’s anger spikes again. “Or you know what? Maybe I hope he has the strength not to. You’re an ass,” she finishes, then grabs her duffle bag and leaves, slamming the door behind her, tears threatening once more.

 

 

 

 


	3. ...when you went away...

 

 

When Danny leaves the house, he has no idea where he’s going. His home, his things, his life… are all back on Piikoi Street lying in ruins. He can’t go to his office – to 5-0; he may work there, but it’s Steve’s domain. He drives aimlessly for a while and then finally turns and heads to the one place on this godforsaken rock he can think of that isn’t inextricably linked with Steve in his mind - the one place that hasn’t been wholly consumed by him - and where maybe he can sit and think things through for a while.

 

When he gets to the overlook, he dumps himself out of the Camaro and stumbles over to the edge, the heavy feeling of nausea catching up with him again. He sits down hard on the wall and takes several deep breaths, trying to push his stomach back down where it belongs. His mind wants to pick apart what he just witnessed, but he forces it to concentrate on other things instead.

 

Thoughts whir in his head as he tries to gain control of them and figure out what happens next. There are so many things he’ll need to do… he needs to find a place to stay… he can’t – won’t - go back to the house. Shit – back to searching for a place to live… he had finally found a fantastic house but then he gave it up when he moved in with Steve two months ago. Five-0… what the hell does he do about that? Christ, his whole life is so tied up in his job and vice-versa… How could he stay? It would be awkward as hell and the thought of facing Steve and his betrayal every day seems completely impossible. So, he has to leave 5-0… then what? Back to HPD? Maybe they won’t even take him – God knows, Steve’s ‘rules-be-damned’ attitude that the whole team has slid into hasn’t earned them many friends over there. Maybe he can tell Rachel that he’s willing to go to Vegas – just get the hell out of here… that has its appeal, actually, and Grace… shit… Grace… he can’t uproot her from her life here – she loves Hawaii and Danny had fought like hell to keep her here… he can’t just do a 180 now and pretend like her life and stability aren’t important. And, Grace… Oh, God… Grace, Grace, Grace…. What the hell is he going to tell Grace?

 

He puts his face in his hands and groans a little at the thought of telling his daughter that Uncle Steve will no longer be a part of her life. Danny's thoughts are ping-ponging around his brain wildly and figuring it all out seems insurmountable at the moment so he tries to move on in his mind to smaller problems.  

 

He stands up and begins to pace anxiously as he continues to parse his thoughts. He seems completely oblivious to the curious looks he is getting from other people who have stopped for the view; one couple eyes him nervously and hustles their young son back into the car before hastily departing.  

 

Moving on to personal logistics, Danny thinks about how everything he owns, except for the clothes he is wearing at the moment, is back at the house – Steve’s house. He can manage for a day, but he’ll need to get his stuff. He assumes Steve will go back to work tomorrow and since Danny won’t be going back to 5-0, he can head over to the house while he’s gone and get clothes and small things… but for the big stuff – the furniture – he’ll need help… and a truck… and that will be harder to do without the potential for Steve coming back to the house. And who can he get to help? All his friends are Steve’s friends. Christ – this is such a fucking mess – he should have known better than to fuck where he eats... But he will still need to get his things… maybe he could hire some guys… shit, this is going to cost him a fortune – first and last month’s rent, plus a security deposit. Setting up all the new accounts… Oh God… he needs to get his name off the deed at Steve’s house… Steve had been adamant that it was ‘their’ house and had insisted that Danny be added as joint owner. Danny’s face cracks a slightly unstable grin when he thinks about the panic Steve will probably have when he remembers that he gave half his house to his now-spurned lover. Danny wishes he could be there to see that... but then Danny just sighs heavily, thinking about how he’ll need to get a real estate attorney to file a quit claim deed… no, you know what - screw that – if Steve wants his house back, Steve can pay for it. But he’ll still need to make a lot of calls and try to get his name off of every other joint thing they have, and then set everything up again for himself… pain in the ass… this is all such a pain in the ass…

 

He spends many long minutes making a mental (though very chaotic) checklist of all the things he needs to do to extricate himself physically from Steve and the ruins he made of their life together. Eventually he sits back down, leaning over with his elbows on his knees, rubbing his eyes with his forefinger and thumb. Now that he has some idea of all the things he needs to do in the next… soon… his mind is forced to turn to the thoughts that have been pushing insistently at his brain since he gunned out of Steve’s driveway. He tries to keep them out, but they refuse to be denied any longer, and he finally turns his thoughts fully to Steve’s infidelity for the first time.

 

Once again, nausea hits him hard, causing him to wrap his arms around his stomach and bend over even more. He groans as images of Steve and Catherine writhing together in the bed assault his mind. How? How could Steve have done this? Never, _ever_ , in a million years would Danny have thought Steve capable of this kind of betrayal. He thought he had known Steve so well… how could he have been so completely wrong? What had he missed? His mind traces back over the five years he has known the man, trying to find some clue that would explain it all. Nothing… there’s _nothing_. Steve hadn’t had many relationships since Danny has known him - and none serious, unless you count Cath - but he had never been unfaithful, or shown an inclination to be (that Danny knows) if he had been dating someone. He wasn’t that kind of guy. At least Danny hadn’t thought he was.

 

As he sits there trying to gain control of his thoughts, his text alert chimes and he looks at his phone. He more or less expects it to be from Steve, but he blinks in surprise when he sees it’s from Catherine.

 

_Danny, I’m sorry. I’d really like to talk to you. Will you call me? Or I’m at the Hyatt rm 1402. Please._

 

Before he can even begin to process that, he stiffens when he hears Steve’s truck pull into the parking lot behind him – he’d recognize the loud purr of that engine anywhere. He tucks the phone back in his pocket and curses silently, his anger ignited that Steve has followed him here to this spot.

 

He hears the car door shut gently and turns to see Steve walking toward him as though approaching a wild animal; slowly and with caution. Danny didn’t think it was possible but he finds he is even angrier when he sees that Steve is wearing one of his Naval Academy t-shirts; he’s sure Steve gave it no thought – just grabbed something and threw it on. It wouldn’t occur to him that it would be salt to Danny’s wounds for Steve to try to talk to him wearing a shirt that represents the place that ties him and Cath together in the first place. He’s not sure if it’s a good or bad thing that Steve is so oblivious to the additional slap; ultimately he doesn’t care.

 

Danny turns his back but speaks before Steve can. “Please leave. I can’t talk to you now, and I really don’t want you _here._ ”

 

“Danny… we… we need to talk.”

 

Danny stands up and rounds on Steve. Up close, he can see that Steve’s face is pale and drawn, and even though he looks sadder than Danny has ever seen him look before, it does not weaken Danny’s resolve one iota. “No, actually, we _don’t_ Steve. We both know that there’s nothing you can say to excuse what you did. So there is really nothing to say, _period_.”

 

“Danny…”

 

“ _Listen to me!”_ Danny yells, generating new looks of concern from the other visitors. “I am _not_ kidding! I cannot talk to you right now and I don’t want you _here_ … not _here_! Later… we’ll… have to talk about logistics. But right now, you need to leave because if you don’t, I will honest-to-God try to throw you over this ledge, and I don’t particularly like the idea of my daughter spending her teenaged years visiting me in prison.”  

 

Danny’s fury is real and evident as he reflexively opens and closes his fists and his face is a shade of deep red that Steve has never seen before. Steve takes a couple of steps backward. “Okay, Danno, okay...”

 

Danny points at him. “Do _not_ call me that!” Danny yells again. “You have lost the right to call me that. I don’t ever want to hear that name pass your lips again, _do you hear me?!_ ” Danny knows how ridiculous and childish he sounds, but he means it; hearing Steve use that term of endearment just now had caused his heart to twist in his chest.

 

Danny wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the look that passes over Steve’s face before he turns to retreat is somehow even more despondent, but Danny’s heart is hard and he doesn’t care. When Steve gets to his car and opens the door, though, Danny realizes there _is_ something he wants to say. “Wait!”

 

Steve takes a quick step back toward Danny, looking momentarily hopeful.

 

“Catherine didn’t know,” Danny states firmly.

 

“What?” Steve asks, confused.

 

“Catherine didn’t know that we were together,” it’s not a question, but Danny is looking for confirmation, nonetheless.

 

Steve hesitates and looks away for a couple of seconds before Danny can see him steel himself and turn back to respond. “No. She didn’t know.”

 

“You never told her,” there is strong accusation in Danny’s voice.

 

“No. I never told her,” Steve confirms in a low voice, and looks away again.

 

“You talk to her all the time and, what? You _forgot?_ It didn’t _occur to you_ to tell your close friend that you were in a relationship with someone who she knows?” Danny’s rising anger is tangible.

 

“Danny, I’m sorry – I tried, more than once, but I… I couldn’t tell her… ”

 

“ _Why not?_ I don’t understand, Steve! She’s your friend… she’s _my_ friend!” Danny throws back.

 

“She just showed up!” Steve blurts by way of explanation, though not at all answering Danny’s question. “I wasn’t expecting her and she… she came on strong, and… she doesn’t know that I… that I sometimes like men,” he finishes weakly.

 

“That you sometimes… _?_ ” Danny’s eyebrows rocket up high on his forehead and his voice drips with sarcasm. “What times would those have been?... _Huh?_... _Steven?_ Would those have been the multitude of occasions in the last nine months that we have been shoving our _dicks_ into each other’s _ass?!_ ”

 

Steve visibly cringes, looking hurriedly around to see if anyone has heard them. Danny is either oblivious to the rush of the last of the tourists heading for their cars or he doesn’t care.

 

“Jesus Christ, McGarrett… _seriously?_ You’re so far in the fucking closet and embarrassed to tell your ex that you’re fucking a guy, that you have _sex_ with her instead? Fidelity means _that little_ to you? You couldn’t just tell her you didn’t think it was a good idea? Or that you weren’t interested? Or even that you had a new girlfriend? You had to stick your _dick_ in her to avoid telling her that you choked on _my_ dick this morning?”

 

The image of Steve looking up at him with affection as he was going down on him in their bed this morning comes to Danny unbidden, and he puts his hands to his face as though to block the image from his eyes.

 

Once again Steve has nothing to say, and what little patience Danny may have had is used up. And even though he had wanted Steve to leave him in peace at this spot that has meant so much to him over the last 5+ years, he abruptly walks over and gets into the Camaro, speeding away from his one and only refuge.

 

Danny hadn’t thought it was possible for him to be more furious than he already was, but he sure the hell is. Steve’s answers – or non-answers – have ignited a rage in him previously unparalleled. He feels himself start to lose control and has to turn quickly into a driveway to avoid running off the road altogether. When he stops, he pounds his fist against the steering wheel several times, yelling out loud in anger and frustration. When he stops pounding and looks at his hands, he sees they are shaking uncontrollably. He squeezes the steering wheel tight, trying to get them to stop shaking, and clamps his eyes shut trying to gain control of his breathing which is erratic and verging on hyperventilation.

 

After a few moments, the intense surge of rage ebbs slightly and he manages to calm a bit, but as soon as he does, the seething anger shifts suddenly to deep despair, and the magnitude of this life-altering event hits him full-force for the first time. A sob escapes his chest and he presses his fists to his eyes, trying to prevent the tears that he had thus far avoided, but they will not be quelled. He lets himself go completely, all the while internally berating himself to get it together. A lifetime later, he sits straight and wipes his face, using every bit of energy he has to force his emotions back under control.

 

And since he literally has nowhere else to go, and still needs answers, he puts his car back in gear and heads toward the Hyatt.

 

 

 

 


	4. ... the cross I bear that you gave to me...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW: There's something I feel like I need to add because it seems somehow relevant. I have never really prescribed to the idea that Rachel cheated with Stan and that’s what led to the break-up of Danny and Rachel’s marriage. My personal take on Danny’s divorce has always been that Rachel couldn’t handle the cop thing. I know a Rachel/Stan affair is a popular idea in fanon, and I have no issues with other people writing fic based on that – I agree that it’s possible. I have a few reasons for my opinion, but they don’t really matter for this conversation… I’m just letting you know this so you understand that this story - and specifically Danny’s reactions - are not colored by previous infidelity.

 

 

 

Danny knocks on the door to room 1402, steeling himself for what comes next. He doesn’t really want to be here – Catherine is the second-to-last person in the world he wants to see right now - but a big piece of him needs some sort of explanation for what happened this morning and he’s clearly not going to get that from Steve. And besides, _Steve_ is the _last_ person he wants to see.

 

Catherine opens the door a moment later, and when she sees Danny standing there, she looks very surprised. “Danny!" she says after a beat.  "I honestly didn’t think you’d come…”

 

The look Danny gives her is inscrutable, but she knows him well enough to know there is tension running under the surface.  

 

“I’m here,” he answers neutrally. “You said you wanted to talk…”

 

“Right… yes… come in,” she stammers, blushing, and stepping aside to gesture Danny into her room.

 

He steps in and glances around. It’s not a room; it’s a suite with a kitchen and living area.  Danny's gut twists when he thinks about how it is miles beyond what he can afford and that it is also eerily reminiscent of the one his brother Matt had had all those years ago. He walks over and sits rigidly on the edge of one of the chairs, and Catherine takes a spot on the couch next to him. They are sitting perpendicular to each other, their knees nearly touching and Danny shifts away from her a little bit.  

 

Cath notices the movement and shifts away as well, giving Danny all the space he wants. “Danny… thank you for coming.”

 

Danny doesn’t answer, but just nods his head.

 

“Look, I just… I need you to know… I didn’t know about you and Steve – I had no idea. You have to believe me…” Catherine pleads. “I would never knowingly do something like that to you… or to anyone.”

 

Danny sighs and sits back in the chair, closing his eyes for a second and seeming to deflate. He had wanted to hold onto his anger, but in the face of her words, he can’t; he knows _she_ doesn’t really deserve the rage that boils inside him.

 

“I know,” he says quietly, opening his eyes to look at her again.

 

“You… you know?” she answers with surprise.

 

“I could see it on your face,” Danny replies wearily, wiping a hand down his face. “You didn’t look guilty – you just looked… embarrassed. It was pretty obvious you had no idea about me and Steve.”

 

“I’m so sorry, Danny. I would never - _never_ \- have slept with Steve if I’d known you two were together,” she repeats.

 

“I believe you, Catherine.”

 

Cath’s shoulders slump in relief as she peers into his sorrowful eyes. “Look, I… I wanted to tell you, too, that… I’m leaving tomorrow morning and I won’t be coming back to Hawaii – I thought you should know that.”

 

Danny raises his eyebrows in mild surprise.

 

“I have to,” she says in response. “It makes me sick that I am the cause of this kind of pain for you. What Steve and I had was over and I should have left it at that. I’ll never stop regretting that I didn’t. The only reason I ever came to Hawaii was for Steve, and that won’t be happening anymore.”

 

Danny doesn’t respond, because as much as he knows this wasn’t really Cath’s fault, he can’t help regretting that she hadn’t stayed away either.

 

The two of them sit in awkward silence for a minute.

 

“What will you do?” Catherine eventually asks. She sounds hesitant, like she doesn’t really want to hear the answer, or knows it’s none of her business.

 

“I don’t know…” Danny sighs, looking out the window. “No... that's not true.  I do know,” his glance trails back to her. “I just don’t want to think about it.”

 

“You’ll leave him?” Cath asks softly.

 

“How can I not?” he returns, his pain-filled eyes boring into hers.

 

Catherine just nods, understanding exactly what Danny is saying; infidelity would be a deal-breaker for her, too.

 

“Why would he do it, Cath?” he asks a moment later. “You know him better than anyone… why the hell would he _do_ this?” his voice is laced with desperate confusion.

 

“I don’t know him better than you, Danny,” she says sincerely.

 

“Well, then I guess I’m screwed because I never thought Steve was capable of something like this. I thought we were good – solid. I kind of thought maybe this was it for me – maybe for both of us. Now I just feel like an idiot.” 

 

“No, I… I don’t really know, but... you’re right. Steve _isn’t_ like that – at least in all the years I’ve known him, he never was – or I never knew him to be.”

 

“So I guess it’s just me, huh?” Danny says, snorting a bitter laugh.

 

“No… Danny… it’s not that. Listen, I… I came on pretty strong. I didn’t really give him a chance to say no…” Catherine looks reluctantly at Danny, guilt written on her face. “I’m so sorry.”

 

“Don’t do that, Catherine,” Danny shakes his head, anger creeping into his voice. “You know as well as I do that Steve is a big boy. The man was a Navy SEAL. We both know he’s more than capable of controlling _any_ situation. He didn’t have to do what he did.”

 

“Yeah…” Cath answers, looking down at her hands as she wrings them anxiously. They both lapse into uncomfortable silence again.

 

“You know,” Cath starts after a minute, her brow furrowed in thought. “Just before we graduated from the Academy, a rumor went around for a while about Steve and another guy. He was pretty freaked out about it. Now that I think about it, it seems like he sort of made a show of taking me out after that – not just our usual hook-ups. And I guess I can understand. I mean, this was even before Don’t Ask Don’t Tell – when even the _idea_ of something like that wasn’t tolerated. One whiff of it up the chain meant he would have been kicked out of the Academy – no commission - immediately dishonorably discharged.

 

“And, Danny, that was almost 20 years ago. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell might have made things a little better, because at least you could _theoretically_ have a relationship, but not really. And even now - even with the repeal - there’s still an enormous anti-gay bias in the military. Very few come out. As much as no one wants to admit it, there’s still harassment and prejudice. The Navy was Steve’s _life_ , Danny. All of his self-worth was tied up in making his father proud and living up to his grandfather’s legacy. So maybe he was too… too uptight about coming out to me, since he’d been so adamant that he wasn’t gay all those years ago. Maybe he couldn’t bring himself to admit it to me, of all people.”

 

“Really, Cath? You? You two are like, best friends,” Danny replies with doubt in his voice.

 

“ _You’re_ his best friend, Danny. You have been since the day the two of you met,” she pauses. “Has he told his other Navy friends? His former SEAL team?”

 

“I have no idea… but I don’t think so. He’s always been pretty close-mouthed about us being together.”

 

“If I had to guess I’d bet he hasn’t. I think that would be a huge source of apprehension for him – to admit something like that to his military cohorts. You know how it is there, Danny. Even with gays allowed to serve openly now, there’s still enormous stigma involved. Maybe it wasn’t _me_ so much as it was my place in his life – that military place, you know? I think… I think maybe it’s just hard for Steve to undo all those years of programming at the Academies and in the Navy. It was more than half his life; it’s not so easy to just turn that off. Trust me, I know.”

 

Danny sighs and sits forward again, elbows on his knees.  “I get that, Cath – I do," he says slowly.  "I know he had a hard time with the idea of going public with our thing. I tried to be understanding. I didn’t push him to tell people beyond our families and the team and a few close friends," Danny pauses - this conversation is so, so incredibly awkward already.  "What I _don’t_ get is why he would _sleep_ with you.”  Danny finishes, reflexively clearing his throat, his gaze skittering away. 

 

Catherine reads his discomfort and doesn't say anything right away, but she's blushing again when Danny turns back to her.  “Look, Danny. I’m not defending his behavior. I totally agree that what he did was wrong. But… I have to tell you…” She hesitates and looks at him nervously, guilt creeping onto her face again. “I went to his house specifically to sleep with him. He opened the door and I didn’t even give him a chance to say hello before I was all over him,” Catherine is mortified to tell him this, but she forces herself to hold Danny’s gaze.

 

Danny stares back at her for a moment taking in what she said, then dips his face into his hand and rubs his eyes. “He could have said no. He could have stopped you,” he answers, sounding completely exhausted.

 

“You’re right, he could have,” Catherine concedes. “Look, I’m _not_ trying to excuse what he did. I’m really not – I’m mad as hell about it, too. But… in retrospect, I can see that I may have said some things that could have triggered some panic in him, and he may have been reacting to that. And, he actually did hesitate and stopped me kissing him at one point. At the time I just thought it was because he was so surprised to see me, but, hindsight is 20/20, you know? The more I think about it, the more I think that he probably _was_ trying to stop me…" she hesitates again.  "But then I teased him and stupidly asked if he had a new girlfriend or if he preferred blondes now.”

 

Danny looks up curiously at that last comment.

 

“Uh huh… exactly,” she nods her head. “Of course, I had someone a little more… female… in mind when I said it," she laughs nervously.  "But I think he just panicked, Danny. I honestly do. I think there’s still got to be a huge part of Steve that’s terrified of the perceived disgrace of something like this.”

 

“Thanks,” Danny mutters sarcastically.

 

She reaches out and grabs his hand. “I hope you believe that I don’t think that, Danny. But an awful lot of the military is still incredibly homophobic. You know that… and Steve does to.”

 

Danny nods vaguely and looks out the window, sadness etched in every line of his face.

 

“I’m really sorry, Danny,” Catherine says eventually. “I’ll always regret the role I played in this. I hope you can forgive me someday.”

 

Danny sighs. “I forgive you now,” he says, turning back to Catherine, who looks at him with wide, surprised eyes. 

 

“Thank you,” she whispers, her eyes welling with tears.

 

Danny reaches out and grabs her other hand and squeezes both in reassurance. After a moment, Catherine has to pull her hands away to wipe her eyes and they both sit back again.

 

“When I left Steve’s place – after I ripped him a new one – I told him I didn’t know if I hoped that you would forgive him, or have the strength not to. But I _do_ hope you can find a way to forgive him, Danny, I’d hate to see either of you lose what you had because of me.”

 

“It wouldn’t be because of you, Catherine,” Danny replies sounding weary beyond measure. “And we didn’t lose it, Steve threw it away.”

 

“I know. But maybe you can find it again?” she asks hopefully.

 

“I don’t know… I don’t think so…”

 

“Look, I know I have no real place in this, and you have to do what feels right to you… But, I’ve always considered you a friend, Danny, and I want you to be happy. And… I have to tell you, I really never did know about this side of Steve…”

 

Danny gives her an uneasy look, unsure of where she’s going with this.

 

“But now that I do, I really get it… I can see that you and Steve would make each other happy.”

 

Danny gives a humorless chuckle at that.

 

“No, Danny, I mean it. There’s always been something between the two of you…”

 

Danny’s expression shifts to one of alarm. “Catherine, we didn’t get together until a couple months after you called things off with Steve…”

 

“I know, Danny – Steve told me that,” she quickly reassures him. “But that doesn’t mean I was oblivious to the spark that always hopped between the two of you when you were together. You two have something special, Danny – you always have.”

 

Danny looks at her with shining eyes. “God, Cath... This is killing me. I love him. I just… I don’t know how to forgive something like this.”  He hates that he's saying this to Catherine, but his heart is aching and he has to get it out and there's no one else...

 

“I… I don’t really know either,” she says sadly. “I’m truly sorry, Danny.”

 

Danny squeezes his eyes shut for a brief moment, then takes a deep breath and exhales loudly. “Okay… okay… I should leave,” he says, standing up before he humiliates himself further.

 

“Where will you go?” Cath asks, standing along with him.

 

“I’m not sure yet… I have a couple of ideas,” he lies, not at all wanting to admit to her just how grim his situation really is.

 

Catherine walks with him and pulls him into a gentle hug before he opens the door. “I’m so sorry, Danny… I can’t say that enough. And I really do hope that you can get the answers you need so you and Steve can get past this.”

 

Danny doesn’t respond – just squeezes her tightly for a brief moment and then quickly lets himself out the door.

 

It’s not until he gets back to his car that everything hits him like a ton of bricks once more. How is it possible that just this morning, he was as happy as he’s ever been, and suddenly, a few short hours later, his entire world has crumbled into dust?

 

Danny has no idea where he's going to go - or what he’s going to do...

 

He is alone in Hawaii…

 

Again.

 

 

 

 

 


	5. ... Mr. Duplicity...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve's Interlude - Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi folks! First – I want to thank you all for the warm response you have given this fic! I honestly thought people would hate it, so all of the amazingly generous support it has received has pretty much floored me – and thank you so much for letting me know what you think so far! 
> 
> Second - just fyi - my original thought for this fic was 6-8 chapters, with the intention of each chapter being around 2,000 words. Sooooo… I’m up to at least 12 chapters now, and the word count has clearly flown out the window, based on the fact that this chapter alone is almost 5,000 words. So much for good intentions…
> 
> And finally, one note re: this chapter: although I don’t think canon has ever given us Steve’s exact birth date, I’m probably playing fast and loose with his age in this fic. I’ve got him probably a few years older than I think Alex actually is – I beg your indulgence... again! But again… it’s my fic and I can do what I want! And let's never forget: it's FIC! ; )
> 
> Anyway - here you go - we finally get some insight into Steve's behavior...

 

 

Steve swims. He swims and swims and swims until his arms are numb and his lungs are screaming and he thinks he can’t go any further - and then he swims further. The entire time he swims, he thinks about how fucked up he is, and how he just made a mess of the best thing that ever happened to him in his life. He stops, miles out, and yells at the top of his lungs in rage and frustration… screams until his voice is hoarse and barely there anymore, and then he floats on his back and sobs and sobs and sobs like he hasn’t done since the day (he thought) his mother died. When he finally crawls out of the ocean much later, he collapses on the grass, chest heaving, and passes out.

 

\-----

 

_“Man up!” his father’s voice echoes in Steve’s head._

 

When he was an adolescent, Steve liked girls just fine, thought they were cute and sometimes he got school-boy crushes. But here was the problem: he also got crushes on other boys. When he was younger, he had more or less thought that was normal, but when he got to about 6th grade, suddenly all of the other boys were talking about girls - and only girls - and words like ‘fag’ and ‘queer’ were thrown around casually.

_“Come on, Steven… Be a man! There’s no honor in being weak!”_

 

So he dated girls – and he _liked_ girls, but he could never quite stop himself from sneaking sidelong glances at certain boys in the locker room shower either. As he got older, he realized he was every homophobes worst nightmare - the wolf in sheep’s clothing - ogling them and thinking about them when they were naked and vulnerable.

_“You’re a man now, Steven… it’s time you act like one!”_

 

And Steve knew instinctively, without having to be told, that liking boys was not how you acted like a man. But there was one boy in high school – Makoa Kali’i – he was a Junior when Steve was a Sophomore, and though he was from an old Hawaiian family, he was singular in that there were apparently errant genes from generations back, because he had blue eyes and his dark, kinky hair seemed to fade to blond on the ends, like a golden halo; Steve was completely enthralled by him.

 

Makoa was on the football team with Steve and one Friday night after a game, when they were the last two left in the locker room, Makoa had pushed Steve into a corner, pressed his body up against Steve’s, and shoved his tongue into Steve’s mouth. They had kissed awkwardly and then rubbed up against each other until they both came in their pants, Steve gasping breathlessly, while Makoa just grunted out his orgasm, then ducked his head and darted out of the locker room without a word. Steve stood there alone for another few minutes feeling slightly stunned and oddly bereft.

That night Steve had taken himself in hand three more times (a not terribly-difficult feat for a 15-year-old boy) and jacked himself off thinking about the hard line of another cock pressed against him. Girls turned him on too - had occasionally made his teenaged dick stand at attention at the most awkward moments - but somehow, the memory of the visible, tangible, readily-obvious sign of Makoa’s arousal had fueled Steve’s fantasies like nothing else ever had before.

 

Steve was distracted the entire weekend, playing and replaying what had happened in the locker room over and over in his mind, having to escape to the bathroom or his bedroom to relieve himself again and again; he was consumed with lust for Makoa. Then on Sunday night at the dinner table, his father had startled him out of his preoccupation with the other boy when he gave Steve a penetrating look and asked, _“So, Steven, are you going to ask a girl to the Homecoming dance?”_

 

Steve had almost choked on the food in his mouth and then swallowed and stammered out, “Uh, I… I don’t know…” and even as he spoke, he couldn’t drag his mind away from thoughts of Makoa’s rock-hard cock pressing against his hip a couple of nights before.

 

 _“Well, man up, son!”_ his father had pushed. _“Every football player needs a pretty girl on his arm!”_ And Steve imagined there was something in the way his father looked at him… as though he could somehow see into Steve's brain and read his perverse thoughts.

 

Steve had blushed furiously and his mom had seen his discomfort and stepped in. “Oh, leave him alone, John,” she chastised.

 

Steve just ducked his head and shoveled food into his mouth.

 

On Monday at football practice, Makoa had persistently ignored him, and then, in the showers after practice, when Steve had glanced over at him – only to catch his eye, to give him a questioning look – he had said, loudly, and for everyone else to hear, “What are you staring at McGarrett? You a faggot or something?”

 

He had sounded angry and Steve was confused, and his face turned bright red and he had quickly finished showering and bolted from the locker room as fast as he could, making sure not to let his eyes linger anywhere for too long.

 

The next day after English class, he tracked down Elizabeth Sweeney; she was the prettiest girl he knew, with wavy brown hair and chocolate-colored eyes, and when he asked her to the Homecoming dance, she said yes. Two weeks later, they left the dance early and drove up to the north shore, where Steve spread out a blanket in a remote spot on the beach, and then their kissing escalated to more and the two of them ended up losing their virginity to each other.

 

Despite being a little awkward (there was definitely some fumbling) it was still the thing that teen-aged boys’ dreams were made of. It was good. Steve was a horny 15-year-old and he was completely aroused by Elizabeth and her pretty little sighs, and when he got home, he lay in bed and he got hard again reliving the beach encounter. But when he put his fist around his dick, instead of thinking about Elizabeth, he found himself thinking about putting his mouth around Makoa’s hard cock.

 

The next morning, his father had slapped him on the back. _“Saw you coming in late, looking a little disheveled, there, son…_ _That’s my boy! Or should I say, man?_ ” and he had winked at Steve.

 

Steve blushed again and didn’t say anything, but he understood that his father seemed proud of him for bedding the pretty girl and that he would _not_ be proud of him for his other, depraved thoughts. Steve loved and respected his father, and despite his father’s constant pushing (or quite possibly, because of it), more than anything, Steve was driven to make his father proud. So he resolved to put all thoughts of Makoa out of his head.

 

And he had been mostly successful at that - except for just a couple of slip-ups, and those mostly when he was asleep and couldn’t control his dreams. His football buddies had congratulated him on scoring with the pretty girl and no one looked at him with suspicion, which was a relief. Steve never really talked to Makoa again - the older boy just glared at him when they happened to catch each other’s eye - and he dated Elizabeth until he left for the Army-Navy Academy, some months later.

 

When his father sent him away, as he was leaving, he told him that there was no more time for messing around anymore… _it was time to be a man. To make him proud_. Steve thought his father would not be proud of him at all if he knew the dreams that left an embarrassing residue on his sheets were filled with cocks and muscles and stubble, rather than soft breasts, smooth skin and slippery folds. So as he said good-bye to Elizabeth, he vowed to think of her - and only her – while he was away and lonely.

 

\-----

 

_"The Academy will make you a man – it’ll be good for you - whip any weakness right out of you!"_

 

The Army-Navy Academy and the Naval Academy were filled with homophobic contempt; the slightest provocation or suspicion meant someone was quickly labeled ‘queer’ and ostracized. His fellow cadets and midshipmen cheered their mates’ exploits with girls, but talked with hatred and derision about those rare few who were suspected of liking other men. The vitriol aimed at a cadet or midshipman caught with another guy was horrific, and they generally disappeared from school without a word from the command. They were simply there one day, caught-out the next, and gone the day after that – dismissed in disgrace.

 

When Steve arrived at the Naval Academy in 1989, the place was still abuzz about former Midshipman Joseph Steffan, who was suing the Navy because he had been dismissed after he had admitted to a classmate that he was homosexual. There were still upperclassmen at the Academy who had known him when he had been expelled in 1987, and even though Steffan had been at the top of his class before he was discharged, no one had a kind word to say about him; there seemed to be universal agreement that the Navy was in the right and should win the lawsuit.

 

 _‘Be a man!’_ echoed around Steve’s head at the Academy every time he realized his glance had lingered a little too long on a fellow midshipman, and he would turn his face in shame. So Steve denied his attractions - even to himself – because after all, he _did_ like girls, too, so it was no real hardship to focus his attentions on the many, _many_ , who loved a man in a uniform.

 

But then, in his final year at the Naval Academy, he and some buddies took the train to New York City for spring break to ‘see the sights’ (pick up women), cramming six of them into one hotel room. At night, they swarmed the clubs, easily finding willing bedmates, garnering invitations to their apartments or hotel rooms. On the last night, Steve was leaning against the bar waiting for another beer when a good-looking blond guy slid in next to him and introduced himself as ‘Quinn’. Steve was a little buzzed and he couldn’t help looking from Quinn’s blue, blue eyes to his lips, which were plush and red and looked like they would be very nice to kiss. And then, with a slow blink and a small smile, he gave some long thought to what it might feel like to have Quinn’s cock in his mouth.

 

Quinn smiled back and ducked his head to Steve’s ear and asked if he wanted to go somewhere more private. Yes, Steve realized he very much wanted to do that and he was about to tell Quinn as much when he happened to glance across the bar and see his buddy Richard looking at him with a stern and possibly disgusted expression. Steve stiffened immediately and pushed away from the bar, telling Quinn he had to go.

 

“Who the hell was that?” Richard questioned him when he walked back to his friends who were gathered around a pool table.

 

“No idea,” Steve replied as casually as he could. “Just some guy barking up the wrong tree.”

 

His friend eyed him suspiciously, causing Steve’s heart to pound. _‘Be a man!’_ swirled at the back of his brain and after he finished about half of his beer, Steve couldn’t stand the tension anymore so he told his buddies he was calling it a night. Four of them tried to convince him to stay, while Richard remained silent, looking at Steve with something indefinable in his eyes.

 

As Steve left the club, though, Quinn appeared out of nowhere, gently grabbing is arm. “Hey… you sure you don’t want company?” he asked with a warm smile.

 

“No… look, I uh… I think you got the wrong impression,” Steve answered, feeling uneasy, but his heart raced excitedly, as well.

 

“Are you sure? Look, I get it, okay? I can see that you and your buddies are Army…”

 

“Navy,” Steve corrected automatically.

 

“Okay…” Quinn quirked a smile at him. “I’m not trying to out you to your friends. I just thought maybe we could have some fun together, that’s all.”

 

And, oh god, Steve really wanted that. As much as he hated to admit it – even to himself - he’d fantasized about all kinds of filthy things he wanted to do with another man since that day in the locker room almost seven years before. He never really intended to act on it… would never have been able to bring himself to go seeking it out. But here it was, offered up to him on a silver platter… he didn’t even have to work for it. “I…” he started and then paused when he saw Quinn’s blue eyes sparking in the light from the club entrance. “We can’t go to my hotel…” he resumed quickly, before he could try to stop himself.

 

“Right… no problem,” Quinn’s smile dazzled him. “I don’t live far, actually. We can go to my place.”

 

When they got to his apartment, Quinn immediately pushed Steve against the wall inside the door and kissed him, tongue licking its way easily into Steve’s mouth. It was less than a minute or two before Steve could feel Quinn growing hard against him and the memory of that night in the locker room jolted through him, causing him to squeeze his eyes tightly shut and push out a startled breath. Quinn registered Steve’s reaction, and, misunderstanding it, pulled back. “How long have you been on a ship?” he asked with a small, teasing huff.

 

Steve told him, honestly, that he’d not been on a ship – he was at the Academy – and then haltingly confessed that he’d never really been with a guy before.

 

Quinn’s eyes smoldered at that and he dropped to his knees. “Well then, let me show you what you’ve been missing,” he smiled up at Steve through his coppery eyelashes, and then gave Steve an earth-shattering blow job. Afterward, somehow, they managed to make it across the tiny apartment to the bed and get out of their clothes, and then Steve finally – _finally_ – got to put his mouth around a cock. It was everything he had ever imagined and so much more. He knew his technique was probably not great, but Quinn was patient and had tapped his head to let him know he was going to come, and though the sudden spurt of bitter semen at the back of his throat startled him, Steve found he didn’t really mind it.

 

As they lay in Quinn’s bed and Steve tasted Quinn in his mouth, he felt like he was on fire with an unquenchable desire; he was hard again within minutes. When he saw Steve’s cock stiffening again, Quinn rolled over and kissed Steve deeply for a few moments, stroking Steve’s cock a couple times before pulling away and telling him drowsily, “I’m not sure I have quite as much energy as you, sailor, but you can fuck me if you want to.”

 

Steve’s mouth went dry and his heart pounded in his chest and all he could muster was “Uh…”

 

Quinn laughed and got out of the bed, grabbing condoms and some lube out of the bathroom. “What me to show you how this is done?”

 

“Um, yeah…okay,” Steve said, blushing fiercely, but getting harder by the second.

 

With Quinn’s constant encouragement, Steve prepped him – doing a fumbling but adequate job. When he was good and loose, Quinn rolled a condom onto Steve, laid him out on the bed, and then slowly sank down onto his rock-hard cock. Steve was floored by how different it felt from fucking a woman, but was even more stunned by how unbelievably good it felt. In his fantasies, he had never even really conceived of this – in his mind, sex with men was always about mouths and hands - but right then, Steve knew that from then on, when he took himself in hand, his thoughts would be fueled by this encounter. Steve came much too soon – much, _much_ sooner than he wanted - but he couldn’t hold back a second longer, and afterward, they both fell immediately into a stupor, and then asleep a minute later.

 

Steve woke up again a few hours later to feel a warm body spooned up behind him, a hard cock pushing against his back, and sweet lips kissing his neck. When he turned his head to capture the lips with his own, he felt the foreign caress of a stubbly face. It felt strange but somehow completely right, and as their tongues twined together and their breathing picked up, Steve knew that while women were just fine, _this_ was what he _wanted_.

 

Quinn broke the kiss after a few moments and reached his hand around to stroke Steve’s rapidly hardening cock as his mouth hovered next to Steve’s ear. “Can I fuck you?” he whispered, then licked a broad stroke up Steve’s neck, causing him to gasp. Steve’s cock throbbed and a small noise of intense desire escaped his throat as he quickly nodded his head, turning to eagerly grab the other mouth with his own again, tongue advancing before lips.

 

Quinn fucked him on his knees, Steve’s forehead resting on the pillow, his hands desperately fisting the sheets next to his head. Quinn was slow and gentle, easing Steve into his first time, but when his cock would occasionally brush against Steve’s prostate, Steve would buck and grunt and push back hard for more contact. When Quinn eventually wrapped his arm around Steve’s body and stroked his cock in time with his thrusts, it took very little before Steve’s orgasm exploded out of him, an animalistic groan working its way out from deep inside.

 

They parted reluctantly at dawn with more kissing at the door, Quinn’s phone number on a scrap of paper tucked into Steve’s wallet, and Steve’s promise to return to New York when he graduated the Academy in a few months. As he walked back to his hotel, his steps were buoyant, and he felt higher than a kite.

 

When he got back to their shared room, he found his mates sprawled on the beds and floor. One of them lifted his head to acknowledge Steve’s arrival. “Where the hell you been, McGarrett?” he slurred.

 

Steve smiled. “Met someone,” he responded lazily.

 

“ _Smooooooth_ dog!” one of them yelled and the others started barking like they always did when Steve’s nickname was mentioned.

 

“Move over,” Steve said, still grinning, and collapsed down onto one of the beds as they all eventually settled down. But just before he was about to drop off to sleep, he shifted on the bed and turned his head to see Richard give him that same peculiar look from the night before – a look that rippled through his gut and set him on edge - and despite being completely exhausted, Steve didn’t sleep a wink.

 

\-----

 

A week after they got back to the Academy, a strange tension seemed to follow Steve wherever he went. No one said anything directly to Steve, but chattering started to noticeably dry up as soon as he walked into a room. When he asked his friend Catherine what the hell was going on, she reluctantly told him that there was a rumor going around about him and another guy.

 

Steve felt the blood drain from his face and he was suddenly light-headed. His entire consciousness seemed to zero in on a disgusted voice in his head that sounded a lot like Richard, calling him _‘faggot’,_ and then his father’s voice telling him to _‘be a man’_ and _‘make him proud’_ and _‘there’s nothing more important than honor’._ He thought of his grandfather’s Pearl Harbor Service Ribbon; the Ribbon that his father had given him the day he graduated from the Army-Navy Academy. His namesake – who died serving this country – whose name would be disgraced by his grandson the homo. How proud would his father – his grandfather – be, if he were expelled from the Academy, dishonorably discharged and publicly humiliated? Steve saw only one answer to that.

 

_"There's nothing more important than honor."_

 

It took every ounce of energy he had for Steve to keep it together. Hard as he tried though, he didn’t think he kept the panic from his voice as he brushed off Catherine’s comment, and then made an excuse to slip away, finding the closest bathroom to quietly have a nervous breakdown. The terror he felt at being discovered for what he really was had his hands shaking as he dug out the slip of paper with Quinn’s phone number and quickly flushed it down the toilet – flicking it away from himself as though it burned.

 

After that, he made a point of acting like a man should. He quickly made a show of hanging out with Catherine more often – taking her to dinner, and fucking her a lot - instead of just hooking up with her now and then. Catherine knew what he was doing, but, she didn’t really care. She didn’t actually think Steve was gay – he couldn’t be, the way he fucked her - but she knew that one whiff of a gay scandal could ruin a sailor. He was her friend and she didn’t want to see his career end, and besides, it was fun; as much as she teased him about it, there really was something to that ‘smooth dog’ thing.

 

Thankfully, his distraction with Catherine seemed to work: the rumors dissipated; conversations no longer abruptly stopped; no one at the Academy looked askance at him anymore. Steve relaxed and graduated at the top of his class, and he beamed when his father came for his graduation.

 

_“I’m so proud of the man you’ve become.”_

 

It had been very close, but he had dodged a bullet and he was thankful every day. Even after graduating though, Steve still lived in fear of being found-out for who he really was; of Quinn showing up one day and outing him; of dishonorable discharge; of his father’s face when he learned how Steve had disgraced his grandfather’s name. More than anything, Steve wanted to be the man his father thought he was – the honorable man his father was proud of. So he shoved his predilections so deep inside of himself that he almost convinced himself that he wasn’t attracted to men.

 

\-----

 

But several years later, the Navy had won the lawsuit so the internal hysteria and reaction amongst his peers had calmed a bit, and the Clinton policy of _Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell_ had morphed into _Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue, Don’t Harass;_ there came to be something of an uneasy truce and there was a noticeable decrease of anti-gay rhetoric. It was most certainly still there – people just had to be more careful about verbalizing it lest they be censured for harassment. Even so, Steve found himself relaxing a little about his ‘proclivities’ and even - very occasionally - thinking about the possibility of satisfying the urges that he had managed to keep at bay but had never quite managed to get rid of altogether. It might be possible to scratch that itch… he started to think… mostly on a subconscious level.   After all, he certainly wouldn’t ever _tell_ anyone about his leanings – he had learned that lesson from Midshipman Steffan – and his encounter with Quinn had made him keenly aware of the need to be completely discreet. But there were ways… it could be possible indulge but still avoid giving anyone any “credible evidence” of his “homosexual behavior”.  

 

Steve was still mostly mulling the idea subconsciously in the early 2000s when his plans to visit his father on leave were derailed by John McGarrett’s apparently mandatory attendance at a conference on the mainland - at the exact time that Steve had planned to be in Hawaii. So he scrapped those plans at the last minute and booked a flight to Thailand instead. He told himself that it was because Thailand was supposed to be beautiful and there was great skin diving there, but in the back of his mind, if he was honest with himself, he knew it was because he had heard stories about discreet resorts that, for a price, catered to their customers’ every desire, no matter how esoteric those desires may be.

 

Steve’s desires weren’t even that unusual; they were downright run-of-the-mill, really, compared to what some people went there seeking. On the first night, a handsome Thai man knowingly approached him at the bar and then spent the rest of the week in Steve’s cabana with him. After two days, his companion made a call, and soon, his blond-haired, blue-eyed friend showed up at the door. All three of them spent the next four days fucking and sucking, sucking and fucking, one of them hard and ready at almost any given moment. By the end of the week, Steve was so sated and relaxed that he could almost convince himself he was happy.

 

_“The military is an honorable profession, son. It’ll make you an honorable man.”_

 

He went back to his team after his leave, and lied, telling them that he had had a great visit with his father in Hawaii, and assiduously ignored the small echo of his father’s voice trying to gain entry into the back of his brain. He mentally looked forward to his next leave – a return trip to Thailand to maybe find that blond guy again - and he was content with his life for about six months. Until the day news broke that a Lieutenant Commander from SEAL Team Four had been dismissed after it had been discovered that he was in a relationship with another man.

 

The series of coincidences that led to the discovery was frankly unbelievable and involved no less than five different people, one sudden bereavement leave, one delayed airline flight, and one cousin who happened to be on a completely unanticipated, last-minute business trip - all of which led to one sailor, who should have been on the other side of the world at the time but wasn’t, and who knew the Lieutenant Commander and caught sight of him at a remote resort in New Hampshire kissing his long-time boyfriend good-bye in the last ten seconds before he left to return to his unit. It was _credible evidence of his homosexual behavior_ and it was reported as such, and following DADT policy, he was summarily discharged.

 

The revelation had taken everyone by surprise and Steve’s world had been rocked. He had known the Lieutenant Commander – they had worked a couple of missions together – he never would have guessed the man was gay. And the confluence of events that had led to one sailor spotting the other was disarming and it hit Steve with startling clarity that it didn’t matter how discreet he was, he could still get caught.

 

Most disconcerting, though, was the effect it had on SEAL Team Four: it shattered the team. The unconditional trust they had shared was suddenly found to be conditional and vitriol was spat around between them. Anti-gay epithets were thrown around wildly for weeks, even months, as SEALs responded to the perceived betrayal. In the end, SEAL Team Four could not survive the incident and it was dismantled – each of the SEALs being sent to fill gaps on other teams.

 

Some of Steve’s own team members lamented the loss of the other Lieutenant Commander, but some harshly criticized the man’s homosexuality, tearing at his memory and ripping it apart. Personally, Steve kept quiet – neither defending not vilifying the other sailor – too afraid that to defend him might put Steve himself under scrutiny. The others’ words devastated Steve, but he had to admit, he understood; there had to be trust. To do this job, you had to know your teammates and trust them unconditionally – and they you. To suddenly learn one of them had a deep, dark secret, something fundamental to who they were at their core – that they were _not the man you thought they were_ – well… if you couldn’t be sure of who your teammates really were, how could you be sure they’d have your back when you needed them to?

 

Steve had a crisis of confidence after that incident and spent long hours, days, and weeks contemplating whether he should leave the SEALs and the Navy altogether. In the end, though, his team, his honor, his father’s regard, were all too important to him to throw it all away on something as insignificant as sexual desire.

 

So that was it. Steve took his memories of Makoa and Quinn and the two guys from Thailand and shoved them into a compartment in his head, never to be opened again. And for years, he was almost able to convince himself that he was content. Yeah, deep down, there was some bitterness, and though he hated to think about it, he knew that in his life, he would probably never truly be happy because of it. But he was okay with that.

 

_“I’m very proud of you, Steve. You’ve grown to be the man I always knew you could be.”_

 

Until the day that Danny Williams barreled into his life with a gun in his hand and a mouth that never quit.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, fyi, this chapter took me a lot longer to finalize than I expected, and therefore, I'm not as far along with Chapter 6 as I'd like to be, and which I am actually finding even more difficult to polish than this chapter. So... the next chapter might be a slightly longer delay than previous chapters - very sorry - and I'll do my very best to post on this same timeline as I have with previous chapters (damn RL for interrupting my writing time!) 
> 
> And thanks as always to my beta, KippyVee, who, despite her best efforts, can’t stop me from messing with my fics some more after she sends me a flawless edit – any mistakes were most definitely made after she sent her copy back to me and are mine and not hers!


	6. ...enough for you to be open wide...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve's Interlude - Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincerest apologies for the long delay in getting this chapter out. Admittedly, I struggled with it, but RL also interfered in a big way, and then it turned out to be about twice as long as I originally thought it would be. I especially apologize to a couple of you who commented that you don’t usually read WIPs but were giving this one a go anyway… I think I should be back on track to posting more quickly – trying my best anyway.
> 
> No beta this chapter, so all mistakes are my own.

 

 

Steve grunts as he rolls over on the grass, still exhausted from his marathon swim. He has no idea how long he’s been passed out on the lawn but it’s dark and he’s stiffened up quite a bit, so he guesses it’s been hours. He stands with some difficulty and then bends back down to grab the t-shirt he had discarded without a thought as he bolted for the water after meeting with Danny at the overlook. When he starts to put it on, he catches sight of the Naval Academy logo on the shirt and groans, bending over with his hands on his knees. _“Shit!”_ he yells out loud, shaking his head in frustration. Instead of putting the shirt on, Steve charges to the house and throws it forcefully into the trash can in the kitchen, not wanting the reminder of… everything.

 

He’s shivering so he grabs a jacket from the front hall and then grabs a six pack of beer from the refrigerator and goes back outside. The first beer is half-gone before he sits down in the chair on the lawn. He has no idea what to do. He just… has _no idea_ … what to do.

 

\-----

 

Before 2010, Steve McGarrett more or less felt like his life was in balance. He had his life as a SEAL, he had Catherine and a few other women that he hooked up with now and then (none of them serious), and he had his family, even if they were distant – both physically and emotionally. Nothing tipped the scales into unmanageable. Even after his father was killed, devastating though that event was, he assumed he would return to his unit and life would go on, much the same as before.

 

But then he met Danny Williams, and suddenly he felt like rather than being in balance, his life became a balancing act; it was like he was perpetually standing on a teeter-totter – Danny at one side, honor at the other – and he was straddling the middle, constantly torn between tipping his weight too far toward either end.

 

Steve thought that the initial jolt of attraction (blond hair, blue eyes, fit, knows how to handle a gun…) would wear off soon enough, especially after Danny had opened his mouth for the first time and hadn’t shut it since. But the magnetic pull Steve felt toward Danny never eased and Steve continued to be drawn to him. As much as Steve tried to resist at first – and he did try to resist - it didn’t take long before he realized he was in trouble, and he knew the compartment he had carefully constructed in his head to contain all of his aberrant desires was not going to be nearly strong enough. Because despite all his good intentions and best efforts, he was never really able to stop himself from utterly adoring his partner. There was something about Danny that Steve was inexorably drawn to. And drawn to in a way he never had been before… in a way that made him think that maybe he wanted to be with Danny; not just fuck him… but to _be_ with him… _all the time._

 

After his brief encounters with Makoa, Quinn and the 2 guys from Thailand all ended more or less disastrously, Steve had pretty much accepted that a relationship with another man would never be in the cards for him – hell, he’d built that compartment in his head precisely to ensure that he wouldn’t think about it. But Danny… Danny made him think about it; made him slide his foot a little further over on the teeter-totter so that the balancing act became… less balanced.

 

For more than four years Steve slid back and forth on that thin plank, fighting with himself – and against himself. He wanted Danny so badly, and Danny would call him ‘babe’ and smile at him, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and Steve’s heart would skip a few beats and he would start to tip his weight, thinking that maybe he could slide just _a little further_ toward the Danny-end of the teeter-totter. But before he tilted too far, he’d always hear his father’s voice in his head, barking at him about honor _,_ and he’d quickly shift his weight back again, straddling the middle and easing the panic that had started to rise as soon as he had gone too far the other way.

 

It got to be a much more difficult exercise when he began to think that maybe Danny reciprocated his feelings – it was the way Danny looked back at him sometimes: eyes glinting; a knowing smirk on his face. After he came to that awareness, it was both thrilling and terrifying to be in such close proximity to Danny all the time. Makoa, Quinn, Thailand… they were all distant, brief encounters, never to be repeated. But Danny wouldn’t be, would he? Danny was here, everywhere, and would inevitably be something completely different; something more permanent and… public. And that was entirely too alarming to really contemplate.

 

So Steve balanced: he watched Danny and smiled at him and then he called Catherine and invited her to Hawai’i for her next leave; he adored Danny and dreamt of his father and called Catherine again; he sat with Danny and testified at his custody hearing and then went home and called Catherine. And then the day came when he couldn’t keep the teeter-totter from tipping precariously down, down, down… and he found himself asking Danny if he was sure he loved Gabby. Then Gabby was suddenly gone and Steve panicked wildly and picked up the phone and asked Cath to join the 5-0 team. He exhaled a breath of relief and tipped the Danny-side of the teeter-totter back up, up, up… getting control of his balancing act once more.

 

Eventually, he and Danny seemed to reach stasis; Cath was around all the time, and soon enough Danny had Amber. Sure, the desire was there – on both sides – but they both seemed to know and accept that they would never act on it. They loved each other – they knew it – they _said_ it – and it seemed to Steve that they both had accepted that that was enough. Steve mentally patted himself on the back as he resisted the temptation that Danny presented and maintained himself in an honorable way, straddling that fulcrum in the center of the board.

 

\-----

 

For four years, Steve struggled to hold onto that balance and he even made himself believe that he was being successful. But in the end, it was unsustainable to be two different people at exactly the same time; the dichotomy too hard to maintain. There was Steve-the-honorable, who was the man his father wanted him to be and thought that he was; and there was Steve-who-wanted-Danny, who was really the man Steve had always been. Suddenly the compartment he had constructed in his head was starting to splinter apart more rapidly. He fought valiantly to patch the holes but as soon as one was repaired, another seemed to appear and eventually he couldn’t keep up; after nearly four and half years, the strain became too much. Steve was exhausted, and without even realizing it, he woke up one day and found that Danny had completely dismantled his compartment, piece by piece, and Steve was losing his ability to balance the teeter-totter.

 

The autumn of 2014 was brutal for both Steve and Danny, and the holidays particularly so. For the first time, Danny knew that there would never be another Christmas with Matt, nor another Christmas Eve when his little girl waited with excitement for the arrival of Santa Claus. As much as Danny always complained about Grace growing up, that year, Steve thought that she really did seem much more like a young woman than the little girl he had known for four years; Steve’s heart broke a little for his partner that Christmas. But the holidays were never particularly easy Steve either - without his parents and with Mary so far away. He was used to being alone, but that year, Steve was still grappling with the fallout from his run-in with Wo Fat, and Catherine had finally said good-bye for good, taking his safety net with her.

 

The teeter-totter finally banged hard all the way over on the Danny-side of the ground one evening in late-January, 2015. Steve’s foot had started sliding that day when Danny had given him a smile that had finally made it all the way to his sparkling blue eyes – for what seemed like the first time in months. That smile… it always made Steve weak and he couldn’t stop himself from manipulating Danny into inviting him for dinner and getting him to promise to make his mother’s pasta.   He told himself it was because he knew Danny needed a diversion – something to take his mind off of everything that was weighing so heavily on his partner lately.

 

When Steve arrived, Danny was already in his kitchen chopping vegetables for the sauce. Steve squeezed by Danny, touching him as he passed, and then set to work on a salad. Steve worked happily, his mind ridiculously distracted with thoughts of his partner’s smile when he slowly came to realize that things had gone quiet behind him. When he turned, he saw that Danny had stopped chopping and had put down the knife he had been using; he was leaning his hands against the counter, his head dropped between his shoulders.

 

“Danny?” Steve ask with confusion. But Danny didn’t answer – instead he just shook his head back and forth.

 

Steve stepped closer and put his hand lightly on Danny’s shoulder. “Hey, Danno… you okay?” he asked with quiet concern.

 

Danny eventually pulled his head up and looked at Steve with slightly watery eyes. “What are we doing?” he asked, staring at Steve in a way that made him both sinfully excited and helplessly frightened.

 

Too terrified to acknowledge what he knew Danny was asking, Steve tried to make light of it, instead. “Making dinner?” he smiled, hoping to distract from the question.

 

Danny stared at him for a few seconds and then his expression shuttered as he huffed a frustrated noise and turned back, picking up the knife and starting to chop again.

 

For some reason, Steve felt that this was it; this was their moment. If he didn’t act right now, it would be the end of their possibilities; Danny would probably call Amber, he would probably call Ellie, and they would never have this moment again. So Steve steeled himself and touched Danny’s shoulder again.

 

“Danny…” he murmured hesitantly, a fine tremor radiating through his body.

 

Danny set down the knife again and slowly turned to face Steve. Steve panicked and froze, more unsure and afraid of himself than he ever had been in his life. He _wanted_. So _badly_ , he wanted. But he also knew that if he gave in to this right now, everything in his life would probably change, and he didn’t know if he had the courage for that.

 

As Steve hesitated, Danny looked up at him and then flicked his glance toward Steve’ mouth; Steve blinked and his mouth watered and his cock twitched just the tiniest bit in his pants. His own eyes flicked down to Danny’s mouth, and when he glanced up again, Danny’s eyes held an intensity he’d never seen before. That look jolted through him and started him moving, and before Steve could register what he was doing, his head was tipping incrementally down and forward. Danny’s eyes flicking rapidly back and forth and then his head was moving slowly up and toward Steve and, inevitably, their mouths came together just for a second - the gentlest, dry slide of lips. Steve pulled back a fraction, his eyes open wide with something like surprise, and Danny smiled that smile, and then reached up and pulled Steve in for a _real_ kiss, and Steve did not resist at all.

 

Danny groaned a little and Steve made a needy noise and pushed Danny against the counter to grind against him. This time, though, when Steve felt the hard cock against his thigh, he wasn’t thinking about Makoa, he was thinking about Danny – and only Danny – and, _oh God_ , he couldn’t get enough. A few minutes later, they both came violently - shaking and panting and clinging to each other – 5 years of pent-up, unrequited sexual tension exploding out of them.

 

Almost immediately, Danny slid down onto the floor, pulling Steve along with him, and they sat side by side catching their breath for a minute before Danny started giggling. The laughter was contagious and soon Steve was giggling along with him and before long they both had tears running down their cheeks. Steve wasn’t entirely sure if they were tears of relief, for resolving all that tension; of laughter, for coming in their pants like teenagers; or of grief for all they had each lost and endured. Regardless, they laughed… and then they kissed some more… and then they went to the bedroom and crawled into the bed together and did it right.  

 

\-----

 

Steve had thought that starting something with Danny would have been the hardest thing he would ever do, but he quickly realized that being with Danny was easy, because he was so flipping in love with his partner - and had been forever, he realized – that that part was a piece of cake.

 

It was the rest of it, though – the _not-being-with-Danny_ parts - that were difficult. It was the looks (mostly imagined because they really were _that_ discreet) that kept him from ever touching Danny or showing any affection toward him in public. And the fears that caused him to cut Danny a glare (that caused Danny to stiffen slightly) whenever he made any gesture in Steve’s direction in public. It was the constant worry that the Navy would find out about their relationship and there would be repercussions. Even if gays were allowed to serve openly now, that didn’t mean that no one cared; plenty of people were still openly hostile to the idea. It was the crippling dread that his former SEAL teammates might someday look at him with contempt and hatred. It was imagining the look in his father’s eyes if he were alive today and saw what Steve was doing; the idea of losing the respect of the one man whose regard was most important to Steve.

 

Those were the hard things, and they never seemed to go away and the fear never seemed to fade from his mind. Those were the things that Steve tried to shove into the new compartment he was constructing in his head, but this one never seemed quite as strong and he was never quite able to keep those thoughts from slipping through the cracks and creeping into his consciousness. Steve had a new _anti-balancing act_ now; trying to keep his weight shifted over on the Danny-side so that his fears didn’t get so heavy that they forced their end down and threw Danny off altogether.

 

But even though trying to be in a relationship with another man scared Steve more than anything else he had ever experienced, Danny just calmly and pigheadedly refused to let him retreat. He seemed to understand Steve’s fears, but he silently refused to let Steve give in to them, and before Steve knew it, he was shocked to find that he was thinking of Danny as his boyfriend.

 

In early-April, the inevitable day came when Danny said they needed to tell Grace. Inside, Steve had quaked, but outwardly he acquiesced; Grace was the center of Danny’s universe and Steve knew there was no two-ways around this one. After Grace, though, Danny wanted to tell his family and Steve had balked. Steve was angry and stressed to the point of snapping. They fought about it – repeatedly – and in the end, Steve didn’t as much as give in as Danny just went ahead and did it.

 

Danny said they were fine with it. Apparently after losing a son and brother in the horrible way they had, the Williams family found they were a little less worried about the smaller things in life – and by comparison, apparently, Danny’s sexuality seemed like a small concern. Was he happy? That was pretty much all they wanted to know and when he assured them he was, they moved on and welcomed Steve into the family.

 

It had been a little disconcerting, actually, for Steve - how readily they’d accepted it – and him. Suddenly, on Sundays when Danny was done talking to his mom, he’d shove the phone at Steve. “She wants to say ‘hi’… humor her,” he’d say with a devilish glint in his eye. It was difficult for Steve to believe that it could be just that simple, but then he was suddenly getting tips from Clara about how to make that risotto that Danny liked so much. He thought about his own father and how he would have likely reacted, and he was certain he wouldn’t have given Danny any tips on how to make Steve happy.

 

They never explicitly talked about Steve’s unwillingness to come out; they didn’t need to really – how he felt about it was pretty clear. Danny seemed to understand and didn’t press the issue too much, but Steve could see that Danny was uncomfortable with the idea of hiding their relationship. Danny would occasionally say that they should tell people – just those who were closest to them – the ones who knew them best. Steve more-or-less always managed to change the subject and brush the suggestions aside.

 

When Danny became insistent that it was about time they told the team, Steve was adamant that they not. Trust was paramount to the seamless teamwork of 5-0, and Steve’s memories of how SEAL Team Four had reacted to the discovery that one of their own was gay lingered in his memory. But Danny didn’t let up. He told Steve he understood his reluctance, but these were people who they loved – who loved them. They deserved the truth and he and Steve deserved to live honestly among them. Besides, Danny reasoned, they couldn’t sneak around forever - they worked with these people day and night and they were _detectives_ , for god’s sake – the would figure it out eventually anyway. But Steve was rock-solid in his refusal and wouldn’t be swayed.

 

The problem took care of itself in May – just like Danny thought – when the team was out after work one night and Kono looked at them and asked, “What’s going on with you two?”

 

Steve shot a dangerous look at Danny from across the table and shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

 

“Whaddaya mean?” Danny asked casually.

 

“I don’t know… you’re acting… different. It’s weird… it’s like you don’t ever get anywhere near each other anymore.”

 

And then Steve realized his mistake. He had been so consumed with fear about people figuring out that they were together that he had been avoiding Danny altogether in public. They had always been handsy with each other – touching and patting one another many times during any given day. But Steve had pulled back; he had virtually stopped touching Danny at work; didn’t automatically sit next to him as he used to; stood across from him around the tech table rather than bumping shoulders. He had registered the small hurt in Danny’s eyes about it, but he was still trying desperately to delude himself into thinking he could somehow keep that center balance on the teeter-totter.

 

“Um…” Danny started, giving a quick, uncertain glance at Steve.

 

Steve felt a warm flush creep onto his face, but before he could even really think about it, the words rushed out of his mouth. “Danny and I are together,” he said, darting his eyes between each of his teammates. When he looked at Danny, he saw a surprised smile light-up his face, causing his own smile to break free.

 

The table was silent for a second, as everyone took that in and Steve got very suddenly very nervous. After a moment, Kono stood up and walked over and hugged Steve, then went to Danny and did the same. Steve let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding as Chin reached across the table and shook their hands.

 

“Glad to hear it,” Chin said easily and smiled.

 

Kono went for a celebratory round of drinks as Danny turned to Lou, “You’ve been awfully quiet,” he said, the challenge obvious in his voice.

 

Grover sighed and set down his beer. “First of all, I want it on record that I don’t give a crap about the fact that the two of you are guys. I’m all for love in any form.”

 

“But,” Danny pushed.

 

“But I’ve never been much of a believer in workplace relationships. There’s a reason why a lot of police departments have policies against them.”

 

Danny stuck out his bottom lip and nodded his head. “Okay.”

 

“It’s not going to change your mind, is it?” Lou sighed in resignation.

 

“Nope,” Danny replied quickly.

 

“Well, then… we’ll just agree to disagree on that, I guess.”

 

“Yes, we will,” Danny answered looking at him pointedly.

 

Panic had been welling in Steve so he had stayed quiet for the exchange as the tension at the table mounted. He was trying to figure out how to undo everything when Kono returned with a new pitcher of beer and poured everyone a fresh one.

 

To his surprise, Grover was the first to raise his glass. “To Steve and Danny,” he said, nodding his head once and smiling at them.

 

Danny smiled back and raised his glass, winking across at Steve, and the tension was broken. And that was that. The team knew, and much to Steve’s surprise, they still worked seamlessly, and life didn’t really change all that much.

 

He isn’t sure how word spread, but soon enough it was clear that others – Jerry, Kamekona, Max – also knew. Steve was surprised at their easy acceptance, but he honestly tried not to think too much about any of it. Instead, he concentrated all of his energy on keeping the voice in his head at bay and Danny’s end of the teeter-totter firmly on the ground.

 

Mary came to visit in early June, and after three days of Danny keeping his distance and giving Steve space to tell her in his own time, Steve finally gathered up his courage and told her one morning as they drank coffee in the kitchen before Steve left for work.

 

“Whoa! Seriously?” she had asked, clearly surprised.

 

“I… I know you must be disappointed in me…”

 

“What? Shut up! Steve! I’m not disappointed! I’m just… surprised, that’s all. I honestly didn’t know you were interested in guys in that way. Give me a minute to adjust my world view, would ya!”

 

Steve didn’t say anything as he hunched over the kitchen island, staring hard at his coffee mug as he twirled it on the counter.

 

“So, really, um… have you always liked guys?” Mary asked after a minute.

 

Steve stood upright and ran his hand down his face in clear mortification. “Uh… yeah, I guess. I just never really… acted on it… sorta hard to do in the military,” he said without any hint of levity.

 

Mary’s eyes got large. “Oh, man… that musta sucked!”

 

“Yeah, kinda…” Steve said, an uncomfortable smile ghosting across his lips.

 

“…All those gorgeous hard-bodies running around… and poor Steve… can’t even touch…”

 

Steve rolled his eyes and walked out of the room, Mary’s laughing catcalls following him all the way to his truck.

 

That night though, as they sat watching the sunset while Joan played in the sand, Steve got up the nerve to ask Mary the question that had been on his mind all day.

 

“What… what do you think dad would have said?”

 

Mary turned and starred hard at Steve; he could see her in his peripheral vision but he couldn’t bring himself to return the gesture. Instead he sat sipping his beer, looking pointedly at the water.

 

“I wish I could say that I didn’t think he would have cared,” she said softly after a moment. “But… I think we both know that’s probably not true.” Steve nodded almost imperceptibly. “But you know what, Steve? Dad’s not here anymore and you shouldn’t live your life worrying about a disapproving ghost who was kind of an asshole when he was alive.”

 

Steve turned at that, blanching. “Jesus, Mary…”

 

“…and Joseph,” she cracked and then turned serious again. “Look, we both know it’s true. He wasn’t the greatest Dad in the world, I don’t care if you tell me he sent us away to keep us safe. At the very least, the way he did it was shitty. And the way he rode you with his expectations… it was ridiculous.”

 

Steve looked at Mary in befuddlement, wondering how she had always found it so easy to defy their father’s expectation while Steve always found it so impossible. Even as they sat there discussing how Steve was in a relationship with another man, part of him wanted to run as far and as fast as possible to be rid of the shame. He pursed his lips and stared back at the ocean.

 

“Steve. You’re a good person. But I feel like everything you’ve ever done in your life has been for Dad, and not yourself…”

 

“Not everything,” Steve interjected.

 

“Almost everything... And, no,” she sighed, “he probably wouldn’t have approved if he knew you were gay.”

 

“I’m not actually gay, I’m bi...” Steve said absently.

 

Mary rolled her eyes. “And _no_ , he probably wouldn’t have approved if he knew you were _bi._ ”

 

Steve cringed a little.

 

“But you don’t have to live your life based on what dad would or would not have approved of anymore. He’s gone and you’re not, so live your life and be happy, already.”

 

Steve looked at Mary and then down to Joan. After a minute he blew out an audible breath. “Thanks, Mare,” he said, turning to smile at her a little. It wasn’t anywhere near that easy, but he appreciated her words anyway.

 

“Your welcome. You know, it pains me a little to say it, but you really do seem more content than I’ve ever seen you.”

 

“And that pains you, why, exactly?”

 

“Because you had to pick Danny Williams? Of all people?”

 

Steve blushed a little and tried, unsuccessfully, to hide his smile.

 

Mary watched him and realization slowly dawned. “Oh my god, you’re in love with him, aren’t you?” She asked, sounding very surprised.

 

Steve picked at the label on his beer bottle and then looked at her again. “Yeah, I guess I am,” he said, not really trying to hide the smile anymore.

 

Mary looked at him with discernment for a minute and then said with quiet seriousness, “You know what? I don’t care if it’s Danny. If he makes you this happy, then I’m happy for you.”

 

“Thanks, Mare,” Steve smiled, and let out a sigh of relief.

 

\-----

 

Life went on… life was good. Steve _was_ happy – really happy – maybe for the first time… ever. As long as he was able to dismiss the echo of his father’s voice in his head. Danny continued to bring up the issue of telling more people about them, but Steve continued to sidestep those gentle inquiries as much as possible. There was still too big a part of him that couldn’t bear the idea of the world knowing about him, and he learned that if he ignored it long enough, Danny would eventually stop mentioning it.

 

In July, he asked Danny to move in with him. He was surprised at how easy it was to take that step and secretly patted himself on the back for it. It didn’t bother him _too much_ that his mouth dried up when he went to hang some things of Danny’s in the closet and he had to push his Navy uniform to the side;  he just shoved those uncomfortable thoughts away and went to get another box to unpack.

 

A couple weeks later, he went to his long-planned SEAL reunion. He didn’t invite Danny and Danny didn’t ask to go with him, even though it was SOP for the guys to bring wives or girlfriends if they had them. It went without saying that he couldn’t bring himself to tell any of them about him and Danny; he didn’t even come close, truth be told. And when, late in the evening after the women had left the men to it, the inevitable stories of their sexual conquests started flowing, for once, Smooth Dog kept quiet. When one of the guys nudged his arm and asked if he was seeing anyone, he swallowed hard and said no – the 5-0 task force took up all of his time for now. It tore at his gut to lie and deny his relationship with Danny, but as he listened to their increasingly explicit stories, his heart pounded hard when his mind flashed on what he and Danny had been doing to each other just a few nights before.

 

What would these guys do if they knew he was a fag? Some of them were the same SEALs who had torn the Lieutenant Commander from SEAL Team Four to shreds behind his back; Steve couldn’t bear the thought of that. He loved these guys… he trusted them with his life and vice-versa. He couldn’t do that to them – betray their trust that way – he just couldn’t do it.

 

When he got home, Danny asked about the guys, and where they went and what they did, but even though he didn’t ask outright, Steve knew Danny wondered anyway… ‘Did you tell them about me’? Steve ignored the silent question and things were a little quieter than usual for a couple days, but soon enough, the cloud they seemed to be living under lifted and things got back to normal… _Danny_ got back to normal.      

 

And life went on… and things were good… and Steve was happy and he was managing to keep his weight firmly on the Danny-side.

 

Until the day Cath showed up at the door.

 

Steve had been utterly stunned to see her standing in his living room; he had just spoken to her the week before and she hadn’t said a word about coming to Hawaii. And then before he could barely register her presence, she was all over him – literally – clearly wanting to resume exactly where they had left off more than a year before. He had tried to stop her, had broken her kisses and stepped back away from her – twice - but then she had lifted an eyebrow and asked if he preferred blondes. Four faces made a sudden appearance – Makoa, Mark, the guy in Thailand, Danny - and it was like she could see right into his soul and see him for the deviant he was. The panic that besieged him when Lieutenant Rollins asked that question triggered something deep inside of him ( _faggot; disgrace; ‘honor, Steven’ weak; ‘proud of you, son’; queer)_ and all he could think about was diverting suspicion … about himself… about who he really was.

 

When Catherine had dragged him up to the bedroom, he shut himself down, putting himself on autopilot, just trying to get through the act. He never had a thought about what would happen… after. All he could think about was maintaining his charade with Catherine. Somehow, he had enough presence of mind not to kiss her (beyond that first flurry in the living room that had taken him completely by surprise) because even as his body did what it did on the bed with Catherine, his subconscious knew he couldn’t betray Danny that way; because _this_ was just sex, but _kissing_ was intimacy… and kissing was only for Danny.

 

When they were finished, and Cath had made that funny noise, and he had turned to see Danny standing in their doorway, his heart almost stopped. The magnitude of what he had he done slammed into him and he was honestly shocked to find himself where he was. When he saw the pain and devastation on Danny’s face and knew that he had put it there, his own pain was as real as anything inflicted by Wo Fat. And when Danny roared away in his car – not once, but twice - Steve knew that what he had done was likely unforgivable and that he had probably just thrown away the best thing he would ever have in his life.

 

\-----

 

Steve sits in the chair on the lawn, the long-discarded empty beer bottles scattered around the ground beside him. He looks at his watch – 5:00 am; he’s been sitting there for hours but he still has no idea what to do about the mess he’s made of his life. What he does know is that he still has a job to do and a team to lead and there are people who still count on him. He reaches over the side of the chair to gather the discarded beer bottles and then stands up and goes inside to make a pot of coffee and face what he has to face. If nothing else, Steve McGarrett is skilled at compartmentalizing.


	7. ...wasn't able to make it enough...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny has five difficult conversations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta is back! Hooray! Thanks KippyVee!

 

  

Danny likes to talk. He’s _known_ for his talking. Given the choice of words or silence, he thought he’d take words any day - but that conversation he just had with Catherine may have put him off of talking for the rest of his life. Well, that one, and the others he knows he won’t be able to avoid for very long…

 

\-----

 

After Danny leaves Catherine’s hotel room, he notices that he has multiple missed calls and texts. Damn! The first couple are from Kono earlier that morning – probably attempts to reach him when Steve didn’t show up at the beach. He and Grace are late by now, too, and it looks like she _and_ Chin have called and texted several more times. _Damn!_ He feels bad; they’re probably genuinely worried that their two bosses are suddenly MIA. That’s cause for real concern in their lives. As he is looking at his phone trying to decide what to do or say, he gets another text from Chin.

 

                < _really need to know whats up   starting to worry   about to call in reinforcements >_

 

 

 _Shit!_ Danny starts typing a reply to both of them as fast as his clumsy fingers will move. He has no idea what to tell them about Steve so he doesn’t even try.

 

_< Whoa! No need to call the cavalry. Sorry – had a change of plans. Grace sick w stomach bug. Holding down the fort.  >_

 

Danny gets an almost immediate reply.

 

                _< at the hyatt?  >_

 

Of course Chin is tracking his phone and car…

 

                _< No, Grace is at home. I’m heading back over there now. Long story.  >_

 

Chin’s response is lightning-quick as usual.

 

                < _Is S with you? hes not picking up either and car is home   was about to head over there >_

 

Danny stares at the phone for a minute, unsure how to reply. He knows the state Steve is probably in and he knows that like Danny, he probably hadn’t given a thought to the fact that Kono was waiting for him – he obviously doesn’t want to talk to anyone either.

 

                < _No he got sidetracked, too. Not sure why he’s not picking up but I talked to him a little while ago. Green light. Everything’s fine. >  _

 

Danny didn’t use their security words _and_ did give them the green light signal, so that should hold them for now - and it wasn’t _exactly_ a lie. Steve _was_ sidetracked and Danny _did_ talk to him just a little while ago. He’s not trying to cover for Steve, but he very desperately does not want to have this conversation with the team right now.

 

                _< ok brah thx take care of grace  >_

_ < I will. Tell Kono sorry. Again >_

A quick chime alerts him to a text from Kono.

 

                _< no prob just glad everythings ok  >_

 

Danny lets out a humorless laugh at that and rubs a hand down his face. Everything is so far from okay, but at least the team won’t be heading out on a search and rescue mission for him.

 

Sitting in his car, Danny reluctantly admits to himself that he needs to go talk to Rachel. He can’t take Grace until he finds a decent place and that could take a few days, so he knows he needs to let Rachel know what’s going on. He so does not want to have that conversation – can already see the pity in her eyes – but he can’t see any way around it. Before he starts the car, he turns off his phone and tosses it on the seat next to him just in case Chin or Kono try to text or call him again.

 

\-----

 

Rachel doesn’t look terribly surprised to see Danny at the door when she opens it. “Danny, I told you Grace would probably be in bed all day; she’s sleeping,” she says, even as she stands aside and opens the door wider for Danny to come in.

 

“Yeah, I know Rach, I just wanted to check on her,” Danny replies, stepping inside. “And… I uh… I kind of need to talk to you.” Danny had tried for nonchalant but he can hear the stress in his own voice.

 

She pauses and looks at him and Danny sweats a little, remembering how well Rachel could always read him.

 

“Why don’t you go look in on Grace? I’ll put some coffee on.”

 

“Uh… you got any beer?” Danny asks, because he’s thinking that would really help with this conversation.

 

Rachel cocks an eyebrow and looks pointedly at the clock on the mantle. Rachel never did approve of Danny dealing with his stress by drinking, especially at… (Danny turns to look at the clock) 1:35 in the afternoon.

 

“Coffee’s fine,” Danny says, flapping his hand at her as he starts toward Grace’s bedroom.

 

\-----

 

Just as Rachel had said, Grace is sleeping soundly so Danny just sits and looks at her for a minute, stroking her hair lightly, before he gives her a kiss – careful not to wake her - and then heads back downstairs to talk to his ex-wife.

 

They end up in the sun room on rattan furniture and Danny settles into the comfortable chair and puts his head back, opting to watch the ceiling fan turn while he tells Rachel what happened. When he finishes, he hears her stand up and walk out of the room and Danny lifts his head to watch her go, confused. She comes back a moment later with an open beer which she hands to Danny and then sits back down in her chair across from him.

 

Danny sets the beer on the table in front of him. “Thanks,” he says with genuine appreciation; he sometimes forgets that Rachel isn’t always a terrible person.

 

Rachel just nods. “What will you do, Danny?” she asks, with real concern in her voice.

 

“Um, I don’t know for sure. I’ll go talk to HPD, see if I can go back there, I guess.”

 

“Do you think that’s likely?”

 

“Maybe. Steve can kind of piss them off sometimes, but we’ve worked on establishing a good relationship with them lately. I think I have – if not friends – colleagues there who would support me coming over. Or at least wouldn’t oppose it. It’s the brass that’ll be the bigger problem. They hate it when 5-0 poaches cases so they aren’t our biggest fans…”

 

“You’re a very good cop, Danny. They’d be fools not to have you back.”

 

“That’s… that’s nice of you to say, Rachel,” Danny stammers, surprised at her words.

 

“Just because I couldn’t stand being married to a cop doesn’t mean I wasn’t aware of how good you were at your job. I was always proud of what you did.”

 

Danny looks away for a second and gathers himself. He’s too close to the edge of an emotional breakdown to even try to process Rachel’s comments. He clear his throat and continues. “So, what I’m wondering is, when are you planning to head back to Las Vegas? I need to find a new place and it might take a couple of days…”

 

“It’s fine, Danny,” Rachel cuts him off. “I’ve already cancelled our flights for the week because I can’t believe Charlie will be ready to travel tomorrow. Stan is flying here on Thursday night instead. Grace can stay here for as long as you need.”

 

Danny blows out a relieved breath through puffed cheeks. “Thanks, Rach.”

 

“What will you tell Grace?”

 

Danny hesitates. He has been trying very hard not to think about that all day. “The truth, I guess. Not the gory details, but the truth.”

 

“She’s going to be devastated,” Rachel remarks absently.

 

“You think I don’t know that?” Danny snaps at her, then retreats when he sees her face harden into that annoyed look she always got when they argued and yelled at each other. “Sorry… sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” Rachel’s face softens. “It’s just… the idea of telling her is… She loves Steve… how do I take that away from her?” Danny looks at her with something akin to desperation in his eyes.

 

Rachel leans forward in her chair, bringing herself closer to Danny. “I don’t know, Danny. I’m sorry it’s come to that for you – I really am. As much as you might not believe this, I really do only wish good things for you.”

 

“I guess you didn’t wish hard enough,” Danny says as he looks back up at the ceiling fan.

 

“Well, as I said, Grace can stay here for as long as you need – you know I’m never going to argue about that,” she gives Danny a small smile and he returns it. “Where will you be staying in the short term?”

 

“I don’t know yet,” he answers, suddenly feeling exhausted. “I’ll find a cheap place somewhere and the first thing on the list to do is to find an apartment – I promise.”

 

“You know…?” Rachel hesitates.

 

“What?” Danny asks, curious.

 

“It would be fine for you to stay here for a couple of days,” Rachel offers.

 

Danny flushes in embarrassment at finding himself in this predicament and the humiliation that his ex-wife undoubtedly knows just how precarious his financial situation is.

 

“Thanks, but can you imagine the two of us trying to live together again? One of us would end up dead for sure,” Danny quips, trying for light and flippant, but he knows Rachel saw the red creeping up to his hairline – damn his fair skin.

 

“Look, I have a lot I need to do, so…” he says, standing up, leaving the untouched beer on the table in front of him. Rachel stands, too, and they walk toward the door.

 

“I might, ah, I might be turning my phone off, so I’ll, uh, let you know where I’m staying in case you need to reach me. With any luck I’ll get settled in a couple days and be able to come get Grace.”

 

“Alright, Danny. Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” Rachel says, surprising Danny by pulling him into a hug.

 

Danny can’t make words come out of his mouth so he just squeezes her tight for a moment and appreciates how, astonishingly, it is Rachel who he can count on for comfort, even after everything they’ve been through.

 

\-----

 

If he thought he was wrung-out before, after leaving Rachel’s house, he feels completely depleted. He drives to the part of town with the cheapest motels - the kind that are so far off the tourist strip that most of his neighbors are renting by the hour. But that’s the least of his worries, because right now he knows he needs to be beyond frugal; first and last months’ rent plus security deposit are going to kill him, so he can’t be allowing himself the luxury of… luxury… for now.

 

At least the last time his heart had been broken he’d had Matty – that’s what Danny thinks as he sits on the floor in his motel room with a lukewarm six-pack. Matty - who was there every evening to hold his hand and pass him another cold beer – shoring him up at night so he could get through the next day. But this time… Matty’s gone, and Danny’s alone.

 

Danny sweats as the small wall-mounted air conditioner pumps as hard as it can but still can’t cool the room to an adequately comfortable temperature. He sits on the floor in his shitty motel room because even the floor is more comfortable than the shitty chair in this shitty room, and quite honestly, he’s dubious about the condition of the sheets. But maybe he doesn’t want to be comfortable anyway; maybe he deserves to suffer – to pay for all his stupid mistakes – cuz there have sure as hell been a lot of them in the last year. Red flags. Christ there had been so many red flags, and Danny had ignored them all.

 

\-----

 

_ Monday, September 21, 2015, 4:47pm _

 

Danny ended the call and dropped the phone on the bed, then fell back onto it and groaned in frustration. He’d been on the phone all day trying to find a decent apartment somewhere, but with each call he made, his criteria for acceptable seemed to slip down another notch.

 

His first call this morning had been to his former landlord, hoping against hope that his old place might still be available. The guy had laughed and told Danny that it had been rented again less than 24 hours after Danny vacated. He wasn’t one bit surprised; it was a great house. It had taken him four years of living in shit-holes before he was finally making a little more money and then had stumbled onto that place through pure luck - but he knew he wasn’t likely to get that lucky again. He had spent the last two days kicking himself for ever giving up his house in the first place.

 

 

_ July, 2015 _

_Danny and Steve panted, curled up and sweaty against each other as they came down from their high, enjoying the lazy Sunday before they had to go to work the next day. Eventually, Danny started to get up so he could go home to his own house for the night. Not because he didn’t stay over at Steve’s sometimes – he did a lot actually - but because he had run out of clean clothes and he hadn’t gotten quite comfortable enough to ask Steve if he could do some laundry at his house. Danny felt like that was a little too… real, for Steve - a little too much like they were an actual couple, and he knew Steve was still grappling with that._

_But Steve was comfortable, all wrapped around Danny like a limpet, and when Danny started to extricate himself, Steve had squeezed him tighter. “Stay,” he said, kissing Danny’s neck and moving his hand down to cup Danny’s cock (as if that was going to happen again anytime soon… sometimes Steve refused to acknowledge that they were both bordering on 40 years old)._

_“I’d love to, babe, but I have no clean clothes here and we have to be in early tomorrow for that Defazio deposition,” Danny sighed, pulling himself free from Steve’s grasp and sitting up._

_“So move in with me… then you’ll never have to leave,” Steve said impulsively._

_Danny froze. “Steve…” he said warily, not entirely appreciating the cavalier way his partner said something so… momentous… when he couldn’t possibly mean it._

_Danny watched Steve’s face as he seemed to re-evaluate what he had just said, and then take on the McGarrett resolve: always forward, never retreat. “No, really, Danny… you should move in. It makes sense – you’re here most of the time anyway.”_

_Danny looked at his partner. Deep down, Danny wanted to say yes – would have said yes the first day they started this thing, but... “Maybe you wanna think about this a little more, babe,” Danny said, giving Steve an out._

_“I don’t need to think about it, Danny,” Steve sounded earnest, and Danny knew that voice. It was the voice Steve has when he thinks he knows what he wants, but Danny was still pretty sure he hadn’t thought about the implications of what he’s suggesting._

_Danny looked hard at Steve. “Are you sure? You know, it’s a pretty big step to take just because I’m warm and you don’t want me to leave right this minute.”_

_“That’s not why I asked, Danny,” Steve shifted upright and they both sat awkwardly next to each other. “I mean, come on… it makes sense. You’re here all the time; my place is closer to work; there’s plenty of room for Grace; it’s stupid for you to pay rent… how many more reasons do you need? Come on – next weekend is clear – you don’t have a lot of stuff, we can move you in a day – easy.”_

_“It’s not that easy, Steve. There are other things to think about. I mean… people mostly don’t know about this… us…” he says, waving his hand between them. “It’s going to be pretty obvious if I move in here what’s going on.” Danny hated that he had to say that, but Steve’s reluctance to be public about their relationship complicated things, and he needed to be sure Steve was thinking about all the angles here._

_“I… yeah…” Steve started and then hesitated, his eyes skittering away from Danny’s for a second. “Well, if people ask, I’ve got three bedrooms here,” Steve continued a little hesitantly. “I mean, we could just be sharing a big house.”_

_Danny somehow felt incredibly disappointed at that response. “Uh… yeah… I’m not so sure it’s quite that easy, Steve. People are going to figure it out – or at the very least, they’re going to wonder. Maybe ask questions…”_

_“It’ll be fine, Danny. It’ll be good. Come on, whaddaya say?”_

_Despite his words, Danny saw the emotions warring on Steve’s face. He knew Steve loved him and he kind of thought that Steve wanted to acknowledge what they had together, but he also knew that the idea of coming out completely scared the shit out of the man – even if he had never said it outright. Danny knew that the Navy did a number on Steve in that regard, pushing him far, far into the deep recesses of the closet - and he’d gotten hints that Steve’s father may have had a hand in that, too._

 

_If push came to shove, Danny would have to admit that he was nervous, too; he was a long way away from being an ‘out’ gay man himself. He’d always had bisexual leanings, but he’d never really felt terribly compelled to act on them until Steve came along. But now that they were in a relationship – and they were in a relationship – his inclination was to be honest about it. _

_Danny had been pleasantly and unexpectedly surprised, though - more than once - when Steve had been able to overcome his discomfort and move forward: Steve had initiated their first kiss; Steve had been the one to blurt their news to the team; and he had told Mary with some gentle prodding. Maybe this was Steve overcoming a little more of his fear… maybe they could do this and it would be another step forward for them and their relationship._

_“Yeah, okay, sure. That’d be great.”_

_Steve’s face cracked a huge grin, and Danny smiled in response, trying to quell the niggling doubts that still hovered beneath the surface._

What a big fucking mistake that had been. Danny should have listened to his gut –should have stayed-put in his own house. There was no way Steve was ready to take their relationship to that potential level of public scrutiny. Cath showing up at his door had apparently thrown him into such a tailspin that he’d… Jesus Christ, that he’d fucked her in their bed…

 

 _No_ – Danny pushed those thoughts aside. He couldn’t let himself get caught up in all the ‘what ifs’. He had a couple more calls to make before he could give up for the day, and then he had to go face the worst part of this whole ordeal: telling Grace.

 

\-----

 

_ Monday, September 21, 2015, 6:06pm _

 

“Hey, Monkey, how’re you feeling?” Danny asks as he sits down next to Grace on chaise she is reclining on in the backyard.

 

“Better, Danno. Are we going to your house now?”

 

“No… listen, Monkey, I need to talk to you about something important.”

 

“What’s wrong, Danno?” Grace asks, sitting up, suddenly looking and sounding very uneasy. Danny hates it so much that this was far from the first time he’d seen his daughter worried this way.

 

“This is… this is hard…” he flashes her a weak, nervous smile.

 

“ _What_ , Danno? What’s wrong,” Grace beseeched, clearly becoming agitated.

 

Danny blows out a breath. “Okay, look, Grace…” Danny pauses. He’d rehearsed this in his head several times but now that the moment has arrived he has trouble bringing himself to say the words. “Uncle Steve and I have decided that we’re not going to be together anymore, and I’m not going to work at 5-0 either.”

 

“What? Danno! _Why?_ ”

 

“It… it doesn’t really matter _why_ , Grace, but we’ve made that decision and so I’m moving out of Steve’s house and I need to find a new place to live. So until I do, you can just stay here with your mom – but I’ll come and see you every day and it shouldn’t take too long… by week-after-next when you would normally be back with me I should be settled and we’ll get back to our normal schedule.”

 

“I don’t care about any of that, Danno! What happened? Did you break up with Steve?”

 

“No, it… it wasn’t like…”

 

“Did _he_ break up with _you?_ ” she asks, the shock finally giving way to tears.

 

“No, Grace, listen. It… it was kind of a mutual thing. We… we realized that… we weren’t exactly on the same page about some things… some important things…”

 

“Dad! Just tell me what happened!” she cries, tears flowing heavily from her sad, brown eyes.

 

“Grace… sweetheart… I’m not going to talk about all the details… some of that is personal – just between me and Steve. Sometimes things just don’t work out between people.”

 

“But you two love each other – I know you do!”

 

Danny sighs and looks out over her head at the yard for a few seconds. “Yeah, we do, Grace. But… sometimes that’s not enough.”

 

Grace looks up at him through wet eyelashes. “You’re so sad,” she whispers. “I can see how sad you are…” her faced etched with emotion.

 

“Yeah, I am,” Danny admits. “But you know what would make me feel better…”

 

But before he can even finish the sentence, she throws herself into his arms. Danny holds her tight as she sobs and silent tears slide down his face as well, and every few moments, he turns and kisses her cheek, drawing strength from the person he loves most in the world.

 

When she eventually pulls back, he sees that she is pale and shaky. “You alright, baby?”

 

“I think maybe I’m still a little bit sick.”

 

“Okay Monkey. Let’s get you back to bed. I’ll read to you for a while if you want.”

 

Even though she’s been too old for her parents to read to her for a few years now, Grace nods her head wordlessly, tears still flowing.

 

As Danny starts to stand up, Grace grabs his arm and he sits down again, taking in his daughter’s expression, which still looks horrifyingly sad, but also somehow nervous.

 

“Will I ever see Unc… Steve anymore?” Grace asks him tentatively.

 

Danny swallows hard. “Uh… I don’t… I don’t know, Grace. But, you… if you want to, you can.”

 

“Would it make you sad if I did? If I wanted to?”

 

“No… I… Grace… I know you love Uncle Steve.”

 

“I won’t see him if you don’t want me to,” Grace says, searching his watery blue eyes.

 

Danny pauses. “Look, Grace, let’s just wait and see, okay? I’m not sure I can answer all those questions right now. But if you ever feel like you need to see or talk to Steve, you have my permission, okay?”

 

“Okay, Danno.”

 

“Okay,” he kisses her tenderly on the top of her head. “Come on,” he says as he scoops her up into his arms, “let’s get you back to bed.”

 

“Daaannooo,” she complains loudly. “I can walk!”

 

“Not today you can’t. Today you are sick and you need to be carried,” he replies, knowing it’s really him who needs to hold his baby girl closer for just a little while longer.

 

 

  

_ Tuesday, September 22, 2015, 7:16am _

 

Danny pushes the curtain aside an inch and looks out to see who is banging at his door. He’s surprised to see that it’s Lou – he had expected Kono, maybe Chin, even Steve. But not Lou. But then he looks over at the clock and understands: it’s too early for Kono and Chin – Lou is usually the first one in the office.

 

“Come on Williams. I saw you peeking out the window, I know you’re in there,” Lou barks as he bangs on the door again.

 

Danny opens the door and is blinded by the bright sunlight.   “Come to say ‘I told ya so’?” Danny asks squinting up at the outline of Grover’s hulking mass in the doorway.

 

“I could, and God knows, I probably should,” he says, pushing his way past Danny into the motel room. He pauses and seems to take in what a horrible dump it is before turning to Danny to continue. “But I guess it won’t be an issue anymore since when I got to the office this morning I saw your shield on your desk, and McGarrett tells me your letter of resignation is on his. You wanna tell me what’s going on?”

 

“Not really.”

 

No one had come looking for him yesterday. He has no idea what Steve might have said to explain his absence, but he figured that they all assumed that with Grace being sick, he was home with her. But he knew that brief respite would disappear after he had snuck over to 5-0 at 2:00am. Like a thief in the night, he had checked the parking lot for familiar cars and then went in, quickly typed out a resignation letter that he left on Steve’s desk, and then carefully placed his gun, badge, and keys to the Palace on his own desk. He figured he’d be hearing from his former teammates today – just not this freaking early.

 

“How’d you even find me?” Danny asks out of curiosity, closing the door behind them, leaving them in the murky darkness – which is just fine with him.

 

“Screw you! I may have a few years on you and everyone else down there but I know how to work the damned tech table and trace your car and your damned cell phone,” Lou snaps as he marches over to turn on one of the bedside lamps.

 

Danny sticks out his lip and nods in acknowledgment.

 

“Come on, man,” Lou cajoles as he steps back over to Danny. “You can’t just walk away and not give us some idea of why the hell you’re doing it. We’re your team.” Lou’s face softens. “We’re you’re friends.”

 

Danny sighs. “I guess you were right, Lou. Work and relationships don’t mix.”

 

“I don’t give a damn about the job. I care about the two of you – though God knows why - the way you make my life so damn complicated! McGarrett’s at the office before me, walking around like he got hit with a flash-bang, and you look like death-warmed-over. Jesus, Williams, _what the hell is going on?!_ ”

 

“What did Steve say?” Danny asks warily.

 

“ _Nothin’_. He said you resigned from 5-0 and we still have a job to do and then growled at me to get to it. A real charmer, that one is. Maybe _you’d_ like to shed a little more light…” Lou says with growing impatience.

 

There’s part of Danny that wants nothing more than to tell Lou and everyone exactly what happened. He told Rachel, but that’s different – though he is slightly bitter at the irony that Rachel is now his closest confidant on this island. But Danny’s pretty sure that if his former co-workers knew what had happened – what Steve did – it has the potential to divide the team - everyone taking sides. Lou… the team… they _do_ have a job to do, and it’s a dangerous job that requires teamwork and unconditional trust. Danny does not want to be the cause of a splintering of the seamlessness with which they had always worked; if they started lining up behind him or Steve, things could go bad in the field and someone could get hurt. Danny would never forgive himself if that happened. It’s a big reason why he knew he couldn’t go back to 5-0. Their work requires a solid foundation to keep all of them safe and alive, but the foundation between Steve and Danny is rubble now; Danny would never do or say anything to undermine the structure that remains.

 

“Look… Steve and I, we’ve… parted ways and we’re not going to be able to work together anymore.”

 

“What? Danny… _Why?_ ”

 

“Lou, I’m gonna tell you the same thing I told my daughter: it’s personal and none of your damn business, and that’s all you’re going to get from me,” Danny snaps.

 

“That’s how you talk to your daughter?”

 

“I was less annoyed with her, so I may have been a little nicer,” Danny says impatiently. “Look, it was mutual, okay? That’s all you need to know.”

 

Lou pauses and stares hard at Danny. “Are you sure, man? I mean, the two of you… _five years_ you’ve been partners. And the rest of it… I was starting to think I was wrong about that workplace-relationship thing.”

 

“You weren’t wrong.”

 

 

__

_ Wednesday, September 23, 2015, 6:42pm _

 

“I gotta be honest, I expected you sooner,” Danny says when he opens the door to find Kono staring at him with a fierce expression.

 

“Yeah, well, talk to the boss...” she says, pushing her way past him into the room. “This is the first free second I’ve had. He’s been a complete dick for the last three days, no thanks to you.”

 

“Sorry,” Danny mutters, sincerely meaning it. He knows what Steve is like when he’s upset – he gets focused and driven and starts snapping at the people around him. Danny suspects he’s put on his automaton façade and has probably been barking orders at the rest of the team, refusing to talk to them in any meaningful way.

 

Danny tries to avoid Kono’s scrutiny but she’s all up in his face and he cannot prevent her from riveting him with her eyes. He knew there would be an inevitable conversation with Kono, but knowing that doesn’t make it any easier.

 

“Danny, please… what’s going on?” she asks, with a penetrating gaze.

 

Danny sighs. He hates that they are sitting here in this shitty motel room, on the possibly-disgustingly dirty beds, and Kono’s big brown eyes are welling with tears.

 

“Kono… I’m sorry… I don’t know what to tell you…”

 

“You can tell me the _truth_ , Danny. What the hell _happened?_ ”

 

“Nothing…”

 

“ _Danny!_ Don’t _tell_ me nothing happened! You and Steve are a no-show on Sunday and all of a sudden you resign from 5-0? Grover tells me you said you and Steve broke up... for God’s sake – that’s not _nothing!_ ”

 

“You’re right, okay? Something happened, but it… it doesn’t matter what. I’m sorry. It’s just best if I leave 5-0.”

 

“Danny, you can’t leave… you’re part of our team.”

 

“Five-0 will do just fine without me. We did fine when there were just four of us in the beginning, and Lou’s there now.”

 

“It’s not about the numbers Danny…”

 

"It’s Steve’s team…” he interrupts.

 

“Steve may be the boss, Danny, but you’re the heart of 5-0. And it’s just as much your team as Steve’s,” she says firmly.

 

Danny gives her a sad smile. “It’s done, Kono. It can’t be undone.”

 

“Of course it can. Just tell Steve you changed your mind - he’ll take you back in a second…”

 

Danny cuts her off. “I’m not going to change my mind, Kono.”

 

Kono’s eyes go wide at that comment. “Danny, what the hell happened?” she whispers, suddenly sounding almost fearful.

 

Danny flops down onto his back on the bed and covers his face with his hands. “Look… once Steve and I ended… me being at 5-0… it just wouldn’t work...”

 

“But Danny, what happened? Why would you guys break up in the first place? You two are perfect together. I mean, you were always meant for each other.”

 

“Apparently not,” Danny says without inflection.

 

“Danny…” Kono whispers again – shocked – as it starts to sink in that he isn’t kidding – he won’t be coming back.

 

Danny sits up again. “You’re a good cop, Kono. It’s really been a pleasure to work with you,” Danny says, because it feels like he’s saying good-bye and he wants her to know that.

 

“Danny…don’t say it like that...” she says, looking stunned.

 

Danny stands up and pulls her to her feet and then grabs her in a tight embrace.

 

“Please don’t,” Kono says, her voice hitching as tears flow down her face.

 

“Don’t be like that, okay?” he says, really wishing she’d stop crying because it’s making this so much harder. “It’s alright. I’m fine. You guys’ll be fine,” he sooths.

 

Kono pulls back a little and wipes the tears from her face. “I’m going to miss you so much…” she says, her chin quavering.

 

“I’ll never be more than a phone call away,” Danny reassures her, smiling, but really just wishing she would leave so he can lose his shit like he really wants to.  

 

 

 

_ Thursday, September 24, 2015, 9:52am _

 

                _< can you meet tonight for a beer  >_

_ Thursday, September 24, 2015, 2:18pm _

_ < Danny I know your phone is on >_

_ Thursday, September 24, 2015, 5:03pm _

_< brah I know where your crappy motel is   thought youd prefer to meet someplace else   I will come there if I have to  >_

 

 

Danny types out a response and then throws the phone across onto the other bed.

 

 

_ Thursday, September 24, 2015, 8:33pm _

 

“Wasn’t sure you’d actually show,” Chin remarks as he slides onto the stool next to Danny.

 

“Yeah, well, I could only take so much humiliation for one week – I didn’t need _all_ of you visiting my crappy motel room.”

 

Chin gives Danny a sad, knowing look and Danny’s pretty sure that Lou and Kono both gave him all the lovely details about just how bad the place really is.

 

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

 

“I really don’t.”

 

Chin nods his head and flags down the bartender.

 

A few minutes of silence pass – that’s one thing he’s always admired about Chin – silence is easy for him… They turn their attention to the baseball game on the television over the bar.

 

“So, I have to ask because, you know, Kono will have my head if I don’t…”

 

Danny sighs.

 

“Any way we can get you to come back to 5-0?”

 

Danny shakes his head.

 

“You know what? That’s a lie…”

 

Danny looks over at him sharply.

 

“It’s not Kono asking, it’s me asking. Danny…?” but he trails off when he sees the resolve in Danny’s eyes. “There’s nothing we can say to change your mind?” he asks after a beat.

 

“It’s over, Chin, and I’m done with 5-0. No one is more sorry about that than I am, but it’s the way it has to be.”

 

Chin looks at him for a moment, as though weighing how much Danny really means it. “We’re going to miss you, brah.”

 

“Not as much as I’ll miss you,” Danny says, with an unhappy smile.

 

Chin levels a look of concern at Danny for a second and then turns back to the baseball game.

 

“Kono’s pissed,” he says out of the blue a few minutes later. “She’s sure Steve did something to cause this. The two of them have been like cats scratching at each the last couple of days.”

 

Danny physically turns on his stool and grabs Chin’s arm. Chin startles his gaze away from the ball game and over to Danny whose eyes are blazing.

 

“Listen to me - you tell Kono that that’s _not_ how it is, you hear me?” Danny deliberately lies.  “The last thing you guys need is to be fighting with each other about what happened between me and Steve. He’s the boss and she needs to respect that. You tell her that from me!” Danny says, clearly agitated, his face red and his words angry and clipped.

 

“Yeah, okay… relax… okay,” Chin answers, looking a little stunned and pulling his arm from Danny’s grip.

 

Danny releases Chin and turns back to face the television, picking up his beer and taking a long pull on the bottle.

 

“You know,” Chin says, with his own annoyance apparent, “it would help everyone out a lot if the two of you could maybe explain what’s what.”

 

“It’s nobody’s business but mine and Steve’s, and I’d appreciate it if you would all respect that,” Danny snaps. “Just… just tell Kono, it isn’t like that, will you… _please?_ ” Danny asks, his tone softened considerably.

 

“Sure,” Chin says, staring at Danny who stares back at him unblinking. “Whatever you say.”

 

“Thank you. Now shut up so I can hear the Yankees’ announcer,” Danny replies, turning back to the television.

 

When the inning ends and the game switches to a commercial, Chin turns to Danny again. “What will you do?”

 

“Not sure yet.” Danny picks at the label on his beer bottle. “I talked to HPD yesterday and I’m waiting to hear. They didn’t seem too enthusiastic…”

 

“And if they don’t take you back?” Chin asks with concern.

 

“Well, I hear they might be hiring in the gift shop at Pearl,” Danny tries to joke, but it falls flat.

 

“I can talk to some people,” Chin replies and takes a drink of his beer.

 

Danny shakes his head. “Chin, I appreciate the offer, but I don’t want you using up what little capital you might have finally managed to earn back with HPD for my sake. You hang on to your favors. You might need them some day.”

 

“Well, that’s the funny thing about favors, you get to collect on them however you want. And there’s no point in having them if you don’t collect when people are in need,” Chin replies smoothly while looking at the TV, then turns to look at Danny again. His expression is surprisingly blank, but Danny can read it anyway.

 

“Look, Chin, you already stuck your neck out for me once before and it almost cost you everything. I don’t want you taking a risk for me again.”

 

Chin’s raises his eyebrows and gives Danny a sober look. “Danny, that was me helping out a close friend - just like you’ve done for me more times than I can count. So is this. There’s no sunset on ohana.”

 

Danny sighs. “Nothing I say is going to stop you, is it?”

 

“Nah,” he answers, finally smiling.

 

Danny gives in and nods his head. “Thank you,” he says eventually.

 

They sit in silence for a while longer, nursing their beers and watching the game.

 

“Listen, I’m beat,” Danny says after he empties his bottle. “I have to meet someone pretty early - go look at a place – so, I better take off.”

 

“Yeah, okay. Let us know where you land, will ya?” Danny nods absently as he gets off his stool and Chin grabs his arm this time. “Hey… We’re still your friends, Danny - we always will be – 5-0 or not. You know that, right?” Chin gives him a pointed look.

 

“Yeah, I know.” Danny clasps his shoulder briefly as he turns toward the exit. “Thanks, Chin.”

 

“Stay in touch!” Chin calls after him.

 

Danny waves his hand in acknowledgement as he heads toward the door and hollers, “Talk to Kono!” without turning around because he knows if he does, the façade he’s been maintaining for the last hour or so will collapse completely and he does not want Chin to witness that.

 

\-----

 

Later, he sits on the floor of his shitty motel room, thanking all Gods that those conversations are done with. Then he downs an entire room-temperature beer in one go, and wishes for the hundredth time in four days that Matty was here.

 


	8. ...I'm not quite as well...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Danny have a conversation - Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to those of you who got a double notification on this chapter - I was having some editing difficulties and had to pull the chapter and repost it. Apologies for any inconvenience. 
> 
> Thank you to KippyVee who was a great sounding board for this chapter and upcoming ones!

 

 

_ Friday, September 25, 2015, 10:35pm _

 

Danny has spent a lot of time this week working his contacts at HPD. He’s met with a couple of his old allies at the Department and they’ve assured him that they’d have him back in a second – if it were up to them. The Chief, though, is not as convinced, and Danny can’t really get a good read on why. Some of the guys think he’s just yanking Danny’s chain and making him sweat for a while; others think he holds a real grudge against 5-0 and really does not want to take Danny on-board. Danny’s stomach churns at the thought of what the hell he’ll do if HPD doesn’t come through. And he’s even more stressed since he learned that the Chief is gone for the weekend, taking off for Kauai and leaving him to stew in his worry for the next 54 hours, at least.

 

When he wasn’t hounding HPD, he’d been trying to find a house or apartment for him and Grace – a task that will be seriously hampered if he does not have a job and an income when he finally finds a place. So far he’s looked at seven places that he could actually afford and dismissed all of them for various reasons: bugs; rodents; crack-heads for neighbors; too far from Grace’s school; or just downright revolting. Panic is beginning to set in and he’s starting to worry that he may have to broaden his parameters to include one-bedroom places and not limit it to just two-bedrooms. Jesus – he really does not want to have to go back to sleeping on a pull-out couch – he’s way too old for that. Worse, his daughter is a teenager now; Danny cringes at the idea that Grace would find herself embarrassed to bring her friends home.    

 

Danny is sitting on the floor again, leaning against the side of the bed, refreshing Craigslist over and over, hoping against hope that something will miraculously appear. He’s exhausted because he’s only slept a few hours each night because – hey, added bonus! - the rotating slate of neighbors have a tendency to be loud in very disturbing ways. Danny is physically and mentally drained and he wishes he could give up – though he knows he can’t – but the fight has gone completely out of him.

 

As though prescient to that fact, this is when Steve finally shows up.

 

As Danny sits on the floor, sipping at a warm beer, he is not one bit surprised to hear a key twisting in the lock to his door. He knew Steve would come eventually, and he knew he would assume he had the right to enter, whether Danny wanted him to or not. Danny sits, silent and still, watching Steve make his entry. Steve scans the dark room quickly and then freezes when his eyes lock with Danny’s as he’s half-way through the door.

 

“What are you doing here?” Danny feels compelled to ask, as though he’s surprised - as though Steve would ever consider it not completely his right to enter without asking. In truth, Danny’s honestly just thankful the guy stopped to demand a key from the night clerk and didn’t just kick the door in.

 

“We need to talk, Danny,” Steve replies uncertainly as he closes the door quietly behind himself.

 

“And it didn’t occur to you that breaking into someone’s room is maybe an inappropriate way to start a conversation?” he snaps. He may have known Steve would come eventually, but that doesn’t mean he’s happy about it, or particularly wants to have this conversation right now.

 

“You sneak into the office in the middle of the night to leave me that letter, you won’t return my calls or texts… how else am I supposed to get you to talk to me?” Steve asks, sounding frustrated as he sits down on the floor, leaning against the other bed across from Danny.

 

There’s a table with two chairs and two beds in the room, but the two of them are sitting on the floor, feet disappearing under the bed across from each of them; it paints a strange picture.

 

“Maybe I don’t wanna talk. Did ya ever think of that? Huh?”

 

“We need to, Danny. You know we do,” Steve answers, sounding a little too condescending for Danny’s ears.

 

Danny glares at him a minute and sighs. “You’re right. We do have some things to talk about. There are a lot of logistical things we need to work out. I haven’t been able to find a place yet, but I’m working on that and as soon as I do, I’ll need to come get…”

 

Danny stops mid-sentence when he sees Steve’s expression sink and the color drain from his face.

 

“What? You didn’t actually think you were going to come here and talk me into coming back, did you?” Danny asks laughing a little, looking at Steve incredulously.

 

“I thought… … maybe,” it comes out as a strangled whisper.

 

Danny’s doesn’t respond, but his mouth firms into a thin line making his answer clear.

 

“Danny, please. I’m sorry… Please… don’t do this.”

 

“No,” Danny says, shaking his head firmly. “It’s over, Steve. We’re not going to negotiate that tonight. The only thing we need to talk about is how we are going to extricate ourselves from each other’s lives. The sooner you accept that the easier this will be," Danny tells him bluntly and with no sympathy.

 

“No… no, look, I’m sorry. I’m sorrier than I have ever been, for anything,” he tries, but he can see that his words are doing nothing to sway Danny. “Why can’t we just move past this?” he pleads after a beat.

 

“Seriously?” Danny barks a humorless laugh. “Maybe because 5 days ago I walked into our bedroom and saw you fucking your ex-girlfriend in our bed?” Danny has a hard expression on his face.

 

“It won’t ever happen again Danny, I promise.”

 

“See, here’s the thing, Steve. I thought you already promised that. You know, when we literally talked about monogamy?   When you actually said to me that you weren’t interested in seeing anyone else and you didn’t want me to either – wasn’t that kind of a promise?”

 

When Steve doesn’t respond, Danny continues, his voice hoarse and broken down, barely registering above a whisper. “Do you have any idea how painful that was to see? That ripped my guts out, Steve. And maybe the worst part is, I honestly never, ever, in my wildest imagination would have thought that you would have done that. Do you get that? It never crossed my mind to question your faithfulness because I honestly didn’t think you were that kind of guy.”

 

“I’m not!” Steve replies fiercely, but it makes him feel physically ill that he did this to Danny; caused this much pain – pain Steve can see on Danny’s face and hear in his voice.

 

Danny looks at him incredulously for a few seconds, unable to speak in response to such a ridiculous statement. “Do you actually listen to the words that come out of your mouth sometimes or do you put on some sort of ‘hear no evil’ filter?” he laughs.

 

“I meant it, Danny,” Steve says in earnest.

 

Danny laughs again and this time when he responds, he yells for the first time. “Steve. You _FUCKED SOMEONE IN OUR BED. WHO WASN’T ME. I ACTUALLY SAW YOU DOING IT._ So do not _sit there_ and try to tell me you aren’t the kind of guy who would do something like that,” Danny shifts in his agitation and his laptop slides from its perch on his thighs; he pushes it roughly aside without a thought.

 

“That wasn’t…” Steve cringes. He stops - maybe thinking better of what he was going to say and then lets out a frustrated breath.

 

“I _WAITED_ for you, you son-of-a-bitch! It was _there_ – _we both knew it_ – there was something there between us for _years_ , but I didn’t act on it because it would have been _wrong!_ I’d think we were getting close, and then Catherine would appear again. She’d show up and you’d be with her so I backed off, over and over and over, I backed off. I would _never_ have done that to you… or to _her!_ Ever!”

 

“It won’t happen again. _Danny_. I swear. It will _never_ happen again.”

 

“See, you can keep saying that, but I’m still not going to be able to believe it.”

 

“How can I prove to you that you can trust me?”

 

“I honestly don’t know, Steve,” Danny says and drops his head down, closing his eyes. He takes a few deep breaths and then looks up again. “The thing is. I love you – _Christ_ \- I love you so fucking much it tears me apart on the _best_ of days. I _want_ to forgive you… to be with you…”

 

“Then _do it_ …” Steve says, hopeful, desperate, wild-eyed.

 

“Look,” Danny sighs, his voice laden with exhaustion. “I’m not actually trying to make you suffer or grovel or anything like that. This is just me, knowing what I am capable of – and now I know that I am not capable of existing in that kind of relationship. After everything that I went through with Rachel, I just don’t have it in me to knowingly put myself in a situation where I may get my heart trampled on - again. Going through that with Rachel was really fucking hard, but it feels like it pales in comparison to what I’ve gone through in the last 5 days. At least with Rachel, I knew it was coming, so it wasn’t such a fucking shock. But I thought we were good and then you shoved a knife in my chest and twisted it – Jesus, it hurts so bad… and I… I can’t go back for more,” Danny says, his voice quavering a little and eyes shining.

 

“Danny…” the word is choked out. “I’m telling you, it won’t happen again… I won’t hurt you again…”

 

“You hurt me every day,” Danny sighs wearily and closes his eyes.

 

“What are you talking about..?” Steve asks, confused.

 

Danny gets control again and opens his eyes, shaking his head a little. “Every time you stood two feet from me instead of next me; or every time you pushed my arm away when you knew I was going to touch you; every time you flirted with a pretty waitress just ‘for show’… That _hurt_ , Steve… seeing how you were ashamed of me…”

 

“I was never ashamed of you,” he interrupts, rushing the words out.

 

“Alright, ashamed of yourself then. Whatever - you felt shame about our relationship – about being in a relationship with me.”

 

“No, Danny, I love you.”

 

“I know you love me, but, I can’t and won’t do it to myself anymore. I mean, how do I accept that from you and then look Grace in the eye and tell her that any man she dates – or woman for that matter - should treat her with respect?”

 

Steve looks up sharply at that, pain and regret visible in his eyes.

 

“Danny…”

 

“I hid in the closet with you because at the end of the day, I believed you wanted to come home to me – and no one else. And then I came home and…”

 

“I _do_ only want to be with you Dan… Danny”

 

Danny gives him a sharp look, daring Steve with his eyes to call him ‘Danno’ again.

 

“Yeah, well, this isn’t really about you, Steve. It’s about me, and what I can live with. And I can’t live with that anymore. I thought I could. And maybe I actually could have done it indefinitely if this whole clusterfuck hadn’t happened. But now – I’m so done with it. I’m done hiding with you,” Danny says. He’s bone tired and he drops his head back onto the bed, closing his eyes.

 

“You never said it bothered you before,” Steve sounds a little defensive.

 

“Not in so many words,” he replies, now staring at the ceiling. “But don’t deny that you understood it bothered me. I encouraged you to tell people a lot – and you always refused.”

 

“You didn’t tell me it was a deal-breaker. You should have told me that – then maybe we could have spared ourselves a lot of trouble.”

 

Danny snaps his head back up and looks at Steve, surprised and hurt at Steve’s implication that he wouldn’t ever have started anything with Danny at all if he’d known that that was how Danny felt. But as soon as Steve’s eyes meet his, he can see his regret at his words.

 

“Danny, I’m…”

 

“Listen,” he cuts Steve off. “I didn’t realize how much it would bother me when we started this thing – so it wasn’t a deal-breaker then,” Danny finally says.

 

“Then why is it now?” his voice has a hard edge.

 

“Because you fucked Catherine – _in our bed,”_ Danny says, without as much heat this time, but impatient, because he’s so, so tired and wants to be done with this conversation. “Because you were too fucking uptight to tell her you were in a relationship with another man… With _me…_ And – _big surprise!”_ he manages to raise his voice a little, “…that little event made me wake up to a couple of things – one of which is that I don’t have it in me to be in a relationship with someone who wants to keep it a secret.”

 

“It’s not that easy, Danny…”

 

“I _KNOW_ that!” Danny yells, frustrated and finally getting annoyed. “Look Steve. I get it. I understand how hard it is for you - it wasn’t a cake-walk for me either, by the way - I mean, it’s not like police departments are centers for open-mindedness when it come to this stuff!  And regardless of anything anyone says, we both know that there’s still a lot of prejudice out there - I felt it, too. But I knew that was the case the day we took that first step, and I chose you anyway. I guess… it took me a while to realize it, but I guess I’m just not interested in hiding who I am from the rest of the world. I’m done pretending I’m something I’m not.   It’s too hard – it’s emotionally crippling and it kills what little self-esteem I might still have left, to see you turn away from me because you’re afraid of what one of your old buddies might think.”

 

“You never cared before.”

 

“No – no, I did… I did care, I just didn’t realize how much and so I never said anything – but I’m saying it now. I’m not doing it anymore.”

 

“Is that an ultimatum?”

 

“Putting aside the fact that you cheated on me… No, it is not an ultimatum. I’m not drawing a line in the sand, because I know you won’t step over it. I’m just telling you – this whole thing has made me realize that I just can’t do it anymore. Period. It’s a statement of fact, not a challenge.”

 

“We can… we can be more open about our relationship, Danny,” Steve says, but Danny can hear the hesitation in his words and shakes his head.

 

“Yeah? Really? What happens at your next SEAL reunion, huh? You forget, Steve, I’ve seen you guys in action. It’s like a feeding frenzy with all those women wanting to get with their own Navy SEAL – and the way you guys are all trying to out-do each other…”

 

“I’ll tell them I’m in a relationship,” he says with conviction.

 

Danny just looks at him sadly. “Yeah? Will you tell them with whom?”

 

Steve pauses for a long moment. “I won’t go anymore. I don’t need to see them,” he says finally, but not sounding like he’s even convincing himself.

 

“See, this is my problem, Steve. You care more about what those guys think of you, than what _you_ think of _me._ ”

 

“I _don’t_ though! I just said I wouldn’t see them anymore!”

 

“But you care enough about what they think that you’ll cut them out of your life rather than tell them who you are.”

 

“They know me… they know who I am.”

 

“No, they know who you want them to _think_ you are,” Danny corrects.

 

Even in the low light, Danny can see Steve’s face flush suddenly.

 

“Okay, _fine_ – I admit it – I care what they think of me! _Okay?_ Are you happy? Can we just _move on_ now?”

 

Danny closes his eyes, shaking his head and then tilts his head back again. “This isn’t about you admitting that…”

 

“What _is_ it about then?” he asks, thoroughly frustrated and confused.

 

“Steve, please. I can’t keep going in circles with you. I’m too fucking tired. I can’t find a place that’s fit for my daughter to drive by, much less live in; HPD is giving me the run-around… I got neighbors by the hour keeping me up all night and the team banging on my door during the day.  I’m just fucking wrung out by all of this. Please…I need to stop... please.”

 

“What if I tell them?” he says quickly, sounding panicky because he knows he is not convincing Danny.

 

Danny sighs. “No – I am not going to play ‘what if’ with you – if for no other reason than I have no idea what the answer would be. I am very bad at hypotheticals. But that’s only half the problem anyway, Steve. The other half is what you did and I don’t think I can forgive you. That’s the bottom line… I don’t think I can.”

 

Steve makes a small noise of frustration and looks away for a second before turning back and asking petulantly, “Why can’t you just take my word of honor?”

 

Danny stares straight at Steve and gives him the brutally truthful answer that he knows will hurt. “Because maybe I don’t think you’re such an honorable man right now and so that doesn’t mean much.”

 

Steve flinches and it feel like something is misaligned in his head. Honorable… hasn’t he lived his whole life being honorable? But Steve can’t answer; he just looks at Danny, stunned and devastated, eyes shining in the dim light.

 

Danny stares back, unyielding, and as they sit in silence, it occurs to him that even now, even after Steve made a mess of both their lives, he still can’t face up to being the man he is. Steve still doesn’t get the fundamental problem - that he is not comfortable in his own skin – and a man who is desperate to protect a secret, makes very bad mistakes.


	9. ...I thought you should know...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Danny continue their conversation... sort of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I need to remind everyone: McDanno is Endgame!

 

 

_ Friday, September 25, 2015, 11:26pm _

 

The conversation is over - Steve knows it and Danny knows it – but neither of them has moved from their spots on the floor across from each other. It’s as though neither of them can extricate themselves from the gravitational pull of the other’s orbit.

 

Steve stays where he is because he can’t bring himself to leave. He knows they’re done - it’s over, and he’s not going to change Danny’s mind – but he also knows that when he finally walks out that door, it could be the last time he sees Danny, so he can’t quite bring himself to do that yet. Steve loves Danny; his heart is breaking. He knows he has only himself to blame for it, but he can’t seem to force himself to stand up and take those last six steps to the door, because he knows it will shatter his heart altogether. So he sits quietly, hoping Danny will let him stay just a little longer and thankful for every extra minute.  

 

For his part, Danny would like to think that he’s just too tired and apathetic to force Steve to leave; if he wants to stay… he can stay. What Danny doesn’t want to admit is that there is a small part of him that dreads the sight of Steve standing up and walking out of this shitty motel room. He loves Steve; his heart is breaking, and when Steve walks out that door, it will be shattered completely. He’s in no rush for that. Besides, it’s not like there’s anywhere else he can go.

 

So they sit quietly, just… sharing the same space one last time, their minds and guts both churning, but neither of them are able to bring things to their final conclusion.

 

\-----

 

As he sits in Danny’s room, Steve’s thoughts are scattered… aimless. He’s having trouble corralling his train of thought into something coherent because he can’t get past the feelings of devastation and loss that threaten to oppress him. Every now and then, though, a sparklingly-clear thought assembles itself in his mind.

 

_ (11:59pm) _

“Can I ask you something?” Steve asks hesitantly, not sure if Danny will still talk to him.

 

“Okay… I guess…” Danny answers, equally hesitant.

 

“I just… wondered… How… how long were you there?”

 

“How long was I where?” Danny asks, too tired to track where Steve’s line of thought might be going.

 

Steve clears his throat, nervous. “How long were you watching us?” he asks reluctantly. Part of him really doesn’t want to know, but part of him has been obsessing over this small detail for days.

 

Danny stiffens a little; when he answers his voice is stone-cold, but devoid of emotion.  “Long enough to know you fuck her the same way you fuck me,” he answers after a beat.

 

Steve cringes and ducks his head.

 

Danny stares at him for a moment and then drops his head back onto the bed, blinking at the ceiling.

\-----

_ (12:17am) _

“I wanna ask you something, too,” it’s Danny this time, his own curiosity getting the better of him.

 

“Go ahead,” Steve says bracing himself a little.

 

“Why didn’t you use protection? I could see that you didn’t.” This question had been smoldering inside Danny since he saw Steve’s bare cock on Sunday. It had hovered there, at the back of his consciousness, his mind too preoccupied with other, more pressing things, to give it any attention. Now though, it finds its way to the front of his thoughts.

 

“Catherine uses an IUD,” Steve says dismissively, knowing that she didn’t want to get pregnant any more than Steve wanted her to.

 

Danny snorts, irritated. “I know you know that preventing pregnancy is only _one_ reason for safe sex.”

 

“Catherine isn’t promiscuous, Danny,” Steve sighs, but then realizes his mistake immediately, wishing he could take back those words so he wouldn’t have to hear the ones that he knows will surely come next.

 

Danny gives him a withering look. “I didn’t think _you_ would sleep around with other people either, but look where we are,” Danny grits out through clenched teeth.

 

Steve drops his head back onto the bed this time, not able to continue to look Danny in the eye.

 

\-----

 

  _(1:27am)_

Steve sits with his knees bent, his arms on his knees and his head on his arms.  A new thought crystalizes and he pulls his head up and looks over at Danny. “Why’d it take so long for us to get together… do you think?” Steve asks. “I mean, you were right, there was something there for years.” His mind has been vaguely tracing back through their relationship and Danny’s comment earlier had made him wonder.

 

“I dunno…” Danny shrugs. “Probably because you kept calling Cath and I was inexperienced and didn’t know what the hell I was doing.” Danny can’t stop his lips from quirking up a tiny bit as he remembers their first, fumbling attempts at sex.

 

“I don’t really know how we ever managed to get it together at all.”

 

“Opportunistic infection,” Danny says after thinking about it for a few seconds.

 

“Wha…?”

 

“You know… when you’re already sick and your resistance is down and so you get sicker,” he mumbles, by way of explanation, rubbing his hand down his face and then glancing over at Steve.

 

“ _Are you saying there’s something wrong with me? That I’m sick?”_ Steve spits, the venom in his voice catching Danny by surprise.

 

Danny stares at him for long seconds before he answers, and then responds in a somewhat patronizing voice. “Noooo… I’m saying we were both in a bad place and needed someone, and our defenses were down and it didn’t seem so important for us to stay away from each other anymore.”

 

“Oh,” Steve says very, very quietly.

 

Danny doesn’t say anything else, but mentally puts another mark by the ‘internalized homophobia’ score next to Steve’s name.

 

\-----

 

_ (1:58am) _

Danny’s head is lying back on the bed and he rolls it sideways to look at Steve. “I didn’t think you were going to do it,” he remarks. “Kiss me, I mean… that first time.”

 

“I almost didn’t,” Steve answers neutrally.

 

“Why?”

 

After a minute of consideration, Steve responds. “My whole life…”

 

Danny waits for Steve to finish, looking at his profile because he has turned his face away. Before too long, Danny realizes that Steve already did finish so he rolls his head back again.

 

After a minute, Steve turns and looks at Danny. “Would you have let me? Walk away that night?”

 

Danny lifts his head and shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”

 

“Why?”

 

“You said it, babe.” (Steve’s heart flutters to hear that term of endearment.) “Your whole life. That’s a lot to overcome. If you weren’t ready, I wasn’t going to force you.”

 

\-----

_ (2:04am) _

“I wasn’t ready,” Steve says softly.

 

“I know,” Danny answers sadly.

 

\-----

 

_ (2:08am) _

“I never should have pushed you,” Danny adds, sounding remorseful. ”I’m sorry.”

 

Something sharp twists in Steve’s chest and a pained sound escapes from his throat. “Don’t… I’m glad you did. I… I was happy. Happier than I’ve ever… Just… don’t apologize.”

 

Danny nods vaguely.

 

\-----

 

_ (2:17am) _

“What’s going on with HPD?”

 

Danny sighs. “I don’t know. The Chief isn’t sure he wants me back and I guess I don’t blame him.” Danny rubs his tired eyes. “We haven’t exactly always played nice with them, you know?” Danny says, unable to suppress a small smile.

 

The corners of Steve’s mouth flick upward for a second and then back down, turning serious again. “What will you do if…”

 

Danny grunts out a noise of frustration. “Why does everyone keep asking me that? I don’t have any idea, okay? I don’t wanna talk about it,” he mumbles, trying to put an end to the discussion.

 

“Would you… would you leave?” Steve can’t stop himself from asking after a moment - but he dreads the answer.

 

“This is Grace’s home,” Danny answers, sounding resigned.

 

Steve knows it’s stupid for him to feel relief at that, but he can’t help himself…

 

\-----

 

_ (2:41am) _

“Have you ever told any of your SEAL friends? Not about us specifically, but about any of it…?”

 

“No,” Steve responds wearily.  His head is tipped back – he’s been staring at the weak overhead light so long that blobs are dancing in front of his eyes.

 

“Do you think you ever will?”

 

“Why should I bother now?” Steve doesn’t see the look of sad pity in Danny’s eyes.

 

\-----

 

_ (3:16am) _

“Why… why didn’t you tell Chin and Kono and Lou the truth?”

 

“I did tell them the truth - more or less,” Danny answers.

 

“You didn’t tell them what I did,” Steve points out softly.

 

“No, I didn’t,” Danny agrees.

 

“Why not?”

 

“Do you really have to ask me that?”

 

Steve looks at him but doesn’t answer and Danny is almost hurt by the fact that Steve doesn’t understand why he would keep quiet about Steve’s infidelity.

 

“Because they need to trust you in the field or someone’s going to get killed – and as much as I might want them to know what you did, I want someone to get killed even less.”

 

Steve nods his head slowly, thinking about the SEALs and getting exactly what Danny is saying.

 

\-----

 

_ (3:32pm) _

“What did _you_ tell them?”

 

“Nothing,” Steve shrugs, then reconsiders. “I told ‘em to get to work…” he says after a few seconds.

 

\-----

 

_ (3:49am) _

“Have you talked to Catherine?” Danny asks, mildly curious about how that conversation might have gone.

 

“Yeah. She left. I don’t think I’ll be seeing her anymore,” Steve answers, looking down at his hands.

 

\-----

 

_ (3:55am) _

“I don’t want to see her anymore,” Steve adds.

 

\-----

 

_ (4:22am) _

“What did you tell Grace?” Steve almost chokes on the words.

 

“What I told everyone… it didn’t work out. It was mutual,” Danny sighs.

 

“Can… can I…?”

 

“Please don’t ask that,” Danny cuts him off, but he doesn’t sound angry or cruel, just… sad. “I don’t… I can’t give you an answer about that right now.”

 

Steve nods and squeezes his eyes tightly shut, two silent tears slipping quickly down his cheek.

 

\-----

 

_ (5:01am) _

Steve gathers his courage and lifts his head, staring straight at Danny. “Do you really think that I’m not an honorable man?” he whispers, his voice barely audible. It’s the question that’s been at the fore of his brain for the last several hours – since Danny uttered those words. He didn’t really want to ask – is afraid of the answer – but they’re both exhausted and running on fumes, so Steve’s not strong enough to hold it back any longer. An opportunistic infection, he thinks to himself.

 

Danny stares at Steve and blinks a few times, his eyes feel like sandpaper. “I think…”

 

Steve closes his eyes and waits for the axe to fall, but when Danny doesn’t continue, he finally opens his eyes again. Danny is still staring back, his unblinking eyes searching Steve’s face – for what, Steve’s not sure – but he just sits and waits to hear the answer.

 

After a couple of minutes, Danny looks down, takes a deep breath, and then flicks his eyes back up to Steve’s. “I think you’re really mixed-up about what honor is.”

 

Steve shuts his eyes again - against the words and against the sympathy in Danny’s voice - and against the expression on Danny’s face that he doesn’t entirely understand but that makes him feel uncomfortable.

 

He tilts his head back onto the bed, feeling completely empty.

 

\-----

 

There’s nothing left to say –all the questions have been asked and answered - it’s clear they’re both done. But Steve still doesn’t leave. He can’t – not yet. Not until he can say it one last time; he can’t _not_ say it one last time. So he waits. He waits for Danny’s eyes to slide closed and his breathing to slip into the slow, regular hum of slumber… listening for the familiar steady pulls that tell him Danny is hard asleep.  

\-----

_ (5:49am) _

Steve shifts his weight, rocking onto his knees just inches from Danny. He very lightly places the fingertips of his left hand on Danny’s head, barely making contact and then slowly moves closer and places the briefest, feather-light kiss on the corner of Danny’s mouth - careful not to wake him – but needing to touch him one last time.

 

“Good-bye, Danno,” Steve whispers when he pulls back, and then stands up and walks quietly from the room.

 

\-----

_ (5:50am) _

As Steve gets into his truck, he hits the speed dial on his phone.

 

“This is McGarrett, 5-0. I need to speak to Chief Kahele.” Steve listens for a few seconds as the person on the other end tries to explain that the Chief is gone for the weekend. “I don’t care where he is, I need to talk to him – _now_ \- so you track him down and tell him to call me immediately… understand?”

 

Steve disconnects the call without waiting for an answer and tosses the phone onto the passenger seat. He pauses for a second to rub his hands quickly up and down his face a few times, trying to wake himself up, and then slowly pulls out of the parking lot, taking care not to look in the rearview mirror.

 

 


	10. ...I'm still alive...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Danny move forward... separately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks a million to my beta, KippyVee, who turned around a 6600 word chapter with lightening speed and then gave me some a much-appreciated encouragement! You're awesome!

 

_Saturday, September 26, 2015 _

After the week of worry and stress, things turn around for Danny pretty quickly. Later that morning after Steve leaves, Danny is awoken by a call from Chief Kahele and surprised by his offer of a position at HPD. It’s a cut in pay and a ‘demotion’ of sorts to Robbery, but Danny has a new appreciation for HPD; he accepts immediately.

 

That hurdle crossed, he gets back to the task of trying to find a place to live. At least now he has a guaranteed job and income and has something concrete to put on any lease application.   He spends that Saturday afternoon making endless calls and he goes to look at a couple (horrible) places. He is about to throw in the towel for the day when he gets a call out of the blue from a woman who says she heard he was looking for a house and she has one for rent. This seems odd to Danny, but his former landlord had said he’d put feelers out for him, so he figures one of those must have actually come through.

 

Danny goes to meet the woman and almost falls on his knees in thanks and gratitude when it turns out to be an actual, two-bedroom house with a yard and within his budget. It’s a little smaller and older than his former house, but it’s been well-kept and is in a safe neighborhood.  When he questions why it’s so cheap, the Auntie’s eyes sparkle and she tells him the neighbors like the idea of having a police officer living nearby – makes everyone feel safe, she says. Danny knows his employment hasn’t come up in conversation yet, and the sparkle in her eyes makes Danny suddenly pretty sure that the Auntie probably has the name Kalakaua or Kelly (or both) somewhere back in her lineage.  

 

Danny’s relief is so all-encompassing that he goes back to his shitty motel room and collapses onto the bed and sleeps for 17 hours. When he gets up, he goes to get Grace so she can reconnoiter the house (she loves it) and then starts planning his move. He spends the next couple of days making calls and setting up new accounts.  On Wednesday, he reserves a moving truck and shoots off an email to Steve asking that he please not be present from 9am to noon on Saturday.

 

He doesn’t hear back from Steve, but he gets a text from Chin saying he heard Danny is moving on Saturday and does he need a hand. Chin’s offer is a gift and Danny almost tears-up in appreciation. He is enormously relieved to be able to call and cancel the movers that he had lined up to help him, since he figures he and Chin can probably manage it all and it’ll save him $300 that Danny desperately needs right now.

 

He spends the next two of days painting a couple of rooms in the house (Grace wants blue this time - she's done with the girly pink), his mind occupied with logistics as he patiently stripes the roller up and down the walls.

 

When Saturday comes, he arrives with the truck at Steve’s a little late – at 9:15 - because he doesn’t want to accidently run into Steve. He sees a lot of familiar cars on the street and is shocked to find not just Chin, but Kono and Adam, Lou and Renee, Max, Jerry, Kamekona, and even Dr. Shaw, all there to lend a hand. Obviously choked-up, Danny manages to stammer out his thanks to everyone, but before things can get too maudlin, Lou bellows at everyone to get to work.

 

Danny had brought a bunch of flattened boxes, ready to quickly throw stuff into them; instead he discovers that Steve has packed all of Danny things neatly into boxes, each clearly labeled with the contents. Danny isn’t quite sure how to interpret that, but he doesn’t dwell on it for too long. With the packing already done and so many hands to help, it takes barely a half hour to load the truck; a quick drive to the new house and another half hour later, the truck is completely unloaded.

 

Danny throws some money at Renee (it doesn’t matter that he can’t really spare a cent right now, this act of kindness cannot go unacknowledged), and sends her to the store for food. He sends Kono to pick up Grace and he digs out whatever he can find to help him muster up an impromptu barbeque.

 

Later, as they all sit on the grass and eat and talk and laugh, Danny looks around and can’t help but smile at this ohana. But then a wave of something like despair crashes over him when he realizes that they are missing the glue that had held them together for the last 5 years.

 

\-----

 

For weeks, Steve manages to repress all thoughts of Danny and what he’s lost. He swims, he works himself to the bone, he swims some more, and he sleeps, and that’s about it. He pushes his body to the point of exhaustion so that his mind doesn’t have time to catch up. His team tries to ask questions at first, but Steve shuts them down – not so much because he doesn’t want to admit what he did, but because any conversation about Danny is far too painful for him.

 

After leaving Danny asleep in the motel room a few months ago, he had carefully constructed another compartment in his head and shoved all of his hurt and sadness and self-reproach into it. For the most part, it’s kept him functioning, but every now and then, when he is tired, or when something reminds him of Danny, or when he sees a young girl in a school uniform, he hears a tiny echo in his head:

 

_“I think you’re really mixed-up about what honor is.”_

 

When he gives it any thought – which he tries very hard not to do - he realizes that that voice has completely supplanted his father’s voice, and he laughs hollowly to think that he might be haunted by Danny for the second half of his life. But, hell, he’d deserve it if he was, so he doesn’t feel like he can be resentful about it.

 

\-----

 

True to their word, Danny still sees the team; on moving day, they had told him he was their friend first and teammate second. At the time, he wasn’t sure how that would work, but now he meets Chin for a beer at least once a week; Kono calls him to meet for lunch, or he and Grace meet her on the beach on the weekend so she can continue to school them in the art of the surf; and Lou and Renee regularly invite him over for a nice dinner – Danny brings the wine. It’s nice, and he’s grateful not to have lost his friends along with the love of his life.

 

As a general rule they don’t talk about Steve – it’s an unspoken but universally acknowledged rule – but now and then his name comes up in conversation; given who they all are and what they do, it would be pretty much impossible for it not to. And as weeks pass, and the catastrophic events that changed his life get further away, mouths get more careless and Steve’s name is dropped more and more. Danny, unfortunately, finds it’s not really getting any easier to hear, but he tries to just ignore the references and subtly change the course of the conversation as soon as possible.

 

The worst part, though, is it’s not all about the pain Steve caused; the worst part is that a big piece of Danny still _misses_ him. He misses so much about Steve: his easy laugh; his smile when he’s talking to Grace; his adherence to not playing by the rules; his steadfast resolve about what is and is not appropriate food; how he smells when he’s just out of the ocean after a swim. Mostly, Danny desperately misses seeing Steve every day, and tucking up against him every night.

 

It annoys the hell out of him that these feelings won’t go away and don’t even seem to be fading at all. Despite the pain that he caused, Danny worries that Steve is going to haunt him for the rest of his days.

 

Thanksgiving comes and Lou calls to tell Danny that he and Renee are hosting this year and invites him and Grace. Danny demurs for a moment until Lou tells him that Steve had announced he was going to L.A. to have Thanksgiving with Mary and Aunt Deb. That doesn’t feel right to Danny; Steve’s house – and Steve – had been the heart of their island Thanksgivings for 5 years. He wonders idly if they’ll ever reach a point where they can be comfortable in each other’s presence – where any gathering of these people won’t have to include a discussion about which of the two of them gets to be included… Probably not.  

 

\-----

 

Danny’s first partner, George Akamu (who Danny mentally refers to as Dickhead), is such a complete and utter asshole that he knows right away that it wasn’t Chin’s favors that got him the call from HPD; it had to have been Steve putting the pressure on – probably via the Governor – and now Danny is paying for it. But that’s okay, because he needs this job so badly that he’ll keep his mouth shut and put up with it, and he doesn’t even mind that it’s Robbery and not Homicide. If pushed, he would have to admit that he’s grateful to Steve, but not really surprised either; Steve always takes care of the people he cares about.

 

But Dickhead never stops with the haole putdowns and Danny about saws his tongue in half for 11 weeks, stopping the retorts he so desperately wants to hurl at the jerk. He’s still too new, and even though he did some time at HPD early on, he’s still an outsider there, so he can’t make waves – he needs this job too badly. Eventually though, the inevitable happens and 5-0 shows up to take over a crime scene, which ironically ends up being his ticket away from Dickhead.

 

\-----

 

_ December 2, 2015 _

“Danny!”

 

Danny can’t help himself from smiling before he even turns around; he’d recognize that voice anywhere. Before he can maneuver the 180 degrees, he feels Kono’s arms grasping his neck and he returns the favor.

 

“Finally! I knew we had to catch you on a case eventually!” she says, her dimples digging deep into her cheeks.

 

“Yeah, well, the big boys are here now so I guess that means it won’t be ours for long,” Danny gives her a good-natured smile.

 

“Sorry, brah… what can I say… you shouldn’t have left us.” He wonders if there’s maybe a little dig there - maybe a little bit of resentment - but all he really sees is her genuine pleasure to see him. He’s too paranoid.

 

Danny opens his mouth to answer but stops and then stiffens a little as Steve sidles up next to her, sunglasses on so Danny can’t see his eyes.  A fresh wave of hurt and anger crashes over him.

 

“Detective, what have we got?” Steve asks, his voice neutral.

 

It’s awkward as hell and everyone within a mile can feel it. “Uh… Housekeeper called in a robbery when she arrived this morning and found the door forced open. She never went inside. When we arrived, we found the deceased, Robert Jorgenson, white male, age 48, shot in the head – looks like close range. According to the housekeeper he lives here but he was supposed to be out of town until after the holidays. Max and Dr. Shaw are in there now.”

 

“Okay, we’ll take it from here,” Steve says abruptly and starts to walk toward the house. He takes a couple of steps and then pauses and turn slightly, though not all the way. “Thank you, Detective,” he adds over his shoulder and then turns back and continues into the house. If he had to say one way or another, Danny would swear that Steve never actually looked at him.

 

“Right,” Danny answers as Steve marches off. “Charming as ever… I guess some things never change,” Danny says with only a little sarcasm, resolutely maintaining his cool and still smiling at Kono.

 

“No, brah… he has, actually,” Kono replies, looking after Steve and then turning toward Danny with a serious expression.

 

Danny lifts an eyebrow quizzically but before he can ask what she means, Steve yells for her from the house. “Sorry. Gotta go. Call me, Danny, okay? Bring Grace by soon so we can surf. It’s time for another lesson!” she smiles again and darts toward the house.

 

Danny watches her go and then lets out a breath before he turns to see Dickhead standing nearby - watching – a nasty smile on his face.

 

“What?” Danny says sharply and scowls; he really does not need this asshole in his face after unexpectedly seeing Steve for the first time in nearly three months.

 

“You know, I heard rumors about you two – how you lived together and maybe more than that. But I never believed ‘em. I mean, he was a Navy SEAL, right? I never would’a thought a guy like that likes to suck cock,” and he’s practically leering at Danny.

 

Danny shuts his eyes and sighs deeply; he’s so had it with this guy that he thinks he’s going to explode. But when he opens his eyes again, there’s humor in them. “Yeah, you know what, George? I heard those rumors too. Funny thing, those kind of rumors tend to follow a guy around… the other day I heard a couple of guys wondering about you an’ me,” Danny smiles and genially smacks Dickhead on the arm before he turns toward the car, but not before he sees Dickhead’s face go white and his Adam’s apple bob nervously in his throat.

 

Danny gets a few moments in the car alone as Dickhead tries to regain his composure. He puts his head back and closes his eyes, feeling enormous relief that he just negotiated his first encounter with Steve without humiliating himself, and he tries especially hard to ignore the small fluttering that doesn’t seem to want to leave his stomach.

 

\-----

 

He is not at all surprised, but is enormously pleased, when the Chief calls him in the next day and chews him out for being uncooperative and not a team player and reassigns him to Vice and new partner. Danny is so happy to be done with Dickhead that he hardly bats an eye at the ‘demotion’ to Vice. He doesn’t know why the hell he waited so long to do that.

 

\-----

 

All Steve’s efforts not to think about Danny go flying out the window when he and Kono arrive at a crime scene and find that Danny is the HPD detective that was on the original response. He’s startled to realize how happy he is to see Danny and how he still gets that warm feeling in the pit of his stomach to hear his voice. He’s not so thrilled to see that Danny’s partner is George Akamu; Steve thinks the guy is probably the biggest dickhead and least tolerant guy at HPD. He’s pretty sure it was probably his own interference with the Chief that got Danny teamed up with the jerk and knowing Danny, he’s hating every minute. One more thing for Steve to feel bad about.

 

Steve surreptitiously watches out the window of the victim’s house as Danny says something that clearly rattles Akamu. Good, Steve thinks and smiles. He wishes he could hear what Danny had said – and even silently laments that he, himself, isn’t the target of Danny’s verbal tirade.

 

A couple of days later he overhears Chin telling Kono and Lou that Danny had been bumped down to Vice. He guesses that that dickhead Akamu probably had something to do with it. So now he doesn’t expect to run into Danny again anytime soon; it’s not often that 5-0 gets called in on a case that originates in Vice. He thinks about calling the Chief – or the Governor – again, but knowing Danny, that would piss him off, so he leaves it.

 

But the crime scene encounter has flipped a switch in Steve’s mind and everything in his compartment has been gushing out. Steve finds that instead of ignoring all thoughts about Danny, when he’s not focused on work, all thoughts revolve around Danny; on the idiotic, life-altering mistake he had made; on how he had ruined what they had; and on his confusion over how he could be an honorable man in his father’s eyes but not in Danny’s. The puzzle pulls at his thoughts endlessly and sometimes he’s afraid he may actually go crazy with it.

 

\-----

 

Danny’s new partner is a haole like him and a 35-year veteran. Phil Longmeier has spent most of his career in Vice, apparently satisfied to cruise under the radar at HPD and not ambitious enough to try to move up to the glory divisions like Homicide or Major Crimes. Like McGarrett, the guy never lets Danny drive the car; unlike McGarrett, Longmeier drives like Danny’s grandmother. Danny never thought he’d miss Steve’s driving… go figure.   Phil never gets excited or riled and has little to say when Danny starts a rant. He just nods and mumbles, “uh huh,” whenever Danny goes off; pretty soon, Danny mostly stops, because it’s not nearly as satisfying when he gets no reaction. But Phil’s friendly enough and unequivocally competent, which Danny appreciates, so he tries hard not to compare his current life to his previous life and he tries to pretend he’s satisfied. But the works too simple (Vice criminals are notorious idiots) and Phil is just so damn… boring! It almost makes Danny start to think that the discomfort and awkwardness of 5-0 would be an improvement… almost.

 

\-----

 

_ January 14, 2016 _

“I have a nephew who teaches over at the University,” Longmeier says as they are returning to HPD from a crime scene.

 

The two of them had been driving without conversation – which is pretty typical now – when his partner had cleared his throat and said that out of the blue. Danny’s so surprised that he turns in his seat and stares at Longmeier, and it takes him a few seconds to process that he supposes he should respond to that.

 

“Uh… that’s nice?” he says, slightly bewildered.

 

“He teaches history.”

 

“Oh,” Danny answers, having no clue what else to say.

 

“His name’s Jason. He’s about your age, I’d say,” Danny sees his partner dart a quick glance at him, then return his eyes to the road.

 

 _Shit!_ It finally dawns on Danny where this is going…

 

Longmeier shoots another glance over at him; Danny can see his partner’s blush and he feels his own begin to creep up to his hairline.

 

“Uh, look, Phil, I appreciate what I _think_ you are trying to say, but I’m not really interested in… Jason.”

 

“Oh, I just thought… I mean, you’re not seeing anyone, are you? I thought you said you weren’t seeing anyone.”

 

“Riiiiight… I’m not seeing anyone… but… I’m just… not interested.”

 

“Oh… _OH!_ Sorry, I thought… my mistake. Never mind. Really sorry!” Phil’s face is beet-red now.

 

Danny feels bad for the man’s discomfort and shakes his head a little and sighs. “No, look… Phil. I _am_ interested… I mean… I’m _not_ interested… Shit! Alright, look, what I’m saying is, yes, I do swing that way sometimes, but… not always, and… right now I’m just not interested in… anyone. I mean, I’m kind of off the market right now – for both men and women.” Danny cringes; God, this conversation could not be more awkward.

 

“Oh, okay,” Phil answers, sounding a little disappointed.

 

“Look, no offense to Jason… I mean… I’m sure he’s a great guy…” Danny trails off.

 

“Yeah, sure. I get it,” Phil answers, back on his even-keel.

 

Danny shifts back and stares out the windshield, and strangely, he wonders if the reason the Chief separated Danny and Dickhead maybe wasn’t for Dickhead’s sake; he’s starting to think that the Chief might have been trying to avoid a harassment lawsuit and partnered him with Phil because he knows Phil wouldn’t care about who Danny might have dated in the past.

 

He’s still kicking this idea around in his head a couple minutes later when they pull into the HPD parking lot and Phil breaks the stilted silence again. “If you ever change your mind…”

 

“You’ll be the first to know…” Danny says quickly, hoping to put an end to the conversation.

 

He cannot get out of the car fast enough.

 

\-----

 

_ February 12, 2016, 5:36pm _

Steve is sitting at his desk focused on some Interpol reports late one Friday afternoon – everyone else is gone for the weekend - when he hears a small tap on his door. His eyes open wide in surprise when he sees his visitor.

 

“Grace! What are you doing here, sweetie?” he asks as he stands and walks quickly over to her. “Is everything okay? Did something happen to Danno?” his voice is tinged with panic.

 

“No… he’s fine. Everyone’s fine.”

 

“What’s going on, Grace? How did you get here?”

 

“My friend Kaleigh drove me, and I’m here because I wanted to talk to you, Uncle Steve.”

 

Steve’s heart flutters at that, but he can’t help himself flicking his eyes up and sweeping the bullpen, expecting to see an irate Danny Willliams storming in any second. “Grace, does your dad know you’re here?”

 

“No,” she answers looking and sounding a little bit guilty. “But he told me if I ever needed to talk to you, it was okay.”

 

Steve steers her over to the couch and they sit down, turning to face each other.

 

“Are you sure? I don’t want to make your dad mad, honey.”

 

“I’m sure. When you two broke up, I asked if I would see you anymore. He said he didn’t know, but he said if I ever wanted or needed to talk to you, I could.”

 

Steve doesn’t know what to do with that bit of information, so he focuses on the issue at hand. “What’s going on, Gracie. What do you need to talk to me about?”

 

“I miss you, Uncle Steve. Thanksgiving and Christmas weren’t the same without you.”

 

Steve can’t stop himself from wrapping an arm around her and pulling her in close to kiss the top of her head. “I miss you, too, sweetheart.”

 

“I can tell Danno misses you,” she says tentatively, blinking her eyes up to look at him.

 

“I miss Danno, too.”

 

“Then why aren’t you together? If you both miss each other, you should be together,” she tells him adamantly.

 

“Grace…” he starts, his voice uneasy. “It’s… not that simple…”

 

“Why? I don’t understand. Why won’t either of you tell me what happened?”

 

“What… what did your dad tell you?” he croaks.

 

“Nothing. That’s the problem. He won’t tell me anything – he just says the two of you weren’t on the same page about some things.”

 

“That’s… true, Grace.”

 

She makes a frustrated noise that Steve recognizes as all-Danny. “There’s more to it than that – there has to be… he’s lying to me.”

 

“You dad’s not lying, Grace…”

 

“And now you are, too! I’m not a little kid, Uncle Steve. Why can’t you just tell me the truth?”

 

“Does it really matter, Grace?”

 

“If you both love each other and miss each other but won’t be together, then it matters. Can’t you just tell me what happened? I thought you two were happy and then all of a sudden… you weren’t. It doesn’t make sense.”

 

Steve looks at Grace’s sad and serious expression and his heart breaks some more. He hates himself for what he did to this little family he had, and that he’s responsible for the misery he sees in Grace’s eyes. Unbidden, Danny’s words come to him:

 

_“I think you’re really mixed-up about what honor is.”_

 

Steve closes his eyes against them and braces himself for what he knows he needs to do.

 

After a pause, he opens his eyes and looks at her. “Grace, you remember Catherine?”

 

“Of course I do.”

 

“Well, you know that Catherine and I used to… date. Before your dad and I were together.”

 

“Yes…” she says warily.

 

Steve clears his throat. He’s not sure he’s ever had a conversation this difficult before but he knows it’s the right thing to do. “Catherine came to see me in September, and… it was a surprise – I wasn’t expecting her… and… I hadn’t seen her in a long time.”

 

Grace doesn’t say anything – just looks at him with maybe the slightest dawning comprehension and waits for him to continue.

 

Steve dips his head and closes his eye. “This is really hard…” he whispers, not sure who he is saying it to, or how he’s going to get the next words out. But when he opens his eyes and looks at her again, about to confess what he had done, he sees he won’t need to; he breaks out in a cold sweat just as tears spring to her eyes and she stares at him in horror.

 

“Did you _cheat on him?_ Did you cheat _with Catherine?”_ her voice is filled with recrimination.

 

Steve can’t make words come out of his mouth so he just nods slowly as the full weight of that sinks in to Grace’s mind.

 

“Why would you _do_ that? I thought you loved Danno… He loves you! Why would you…?” she cries, tears flowing freely.

 

“I do, Grace. I do love Danno, more than anything,” he says quickly. “I just… it was a terrible, terrible mistake and I’m so sorry I did that to him, and to you. I’m sorry, Grace. I’m so sorry…”

 

He reaches out his hand to her and she stands suddenly. “No!” she yells and darts away, disappearing out of the office. By the time Steve can react, she’s out of sight and when he bursts out the front doors of the Palace after her, he sees her scramble into a car that squeals out of the parking lot.

 

\-----

_ February 12, 2016, 6:16pm _

Danny is in his small kitchen waiting for Grace to get home and getting things together to make pizza. Friday nights when Grace is with him, they have a ritual: Grace gets home from cheer practice, they make pizza together (better than any you can buy on the island), bake it on the grill, and sit outside at the cozy table in the yard and stuff themselves.

 

He’s trying to decide if he should be getting anxious that Grace is so late when he hears the front door slam and turns to see Grace storming in with tears streaming down her face.

 

Panic surges in Danny. “Grace! What is it? What’s wrong?” he asks, even as he’s grabbing her and pulling her into his arms.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she sobs. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!”

 

Danny gently pulls back from his daughter, his big fists still holding Grace gently by the arms. “Tell you what, Grace? What are you talking about?”

 

“About Steve and Catherine!” she wails.

 

“What? Grace… what?” Danny swallows hard, his stomach in knots.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me that Steve slept with Catherine and that’s why you broke up?” her tone is slightly accusatory.

 

“Jesus…” Danny has no idea what to say to her – he has never envisioned having this conversation with his daughter. “Okay, listen, Grace… let’s… let’s go sit down and we can talk, okay?” he says, trying to gently herd her toward the living room.

 

She turns abruptly and marches toward the sofa, depositing herself in her usual corner, arms crossed, looking angry and upset. He sits on the edge of the couch next to her, but gives her space.

 

Danny lets out an audible breath. “Okay, Monkey, first… tell me what you are upset about. Is it about what happened, or that I didn’t tell you?”

 

“Both! I can’t believe Uncle Steve would do that, but I’m mad that you didn’t tell me,” she agitated and doesn’t mean to let ‘uncle’ slip.

 

“Okay… well… one thing at a time… Look, I didn’t tell you because when it happened, I was really upset and it wasn’t really something I wanted to talk to you - or anyone – about, you know? It was pretty painful – it still is – and it was also something very personal between me and Steve, and not necessarily something that I wanted everyone to know.”

 

Grace ducks her head, wordlessly acknowledging that Danny maybe had a right to his privacy.

 

“Let me ask you something, Grace…” Danny says and she looks back up at him. “How did you find out?”

“I asked Unc… Steve.”

 

Danny just stares at her in some shock for a moment, his mouth slightly agape until he realizes it and snaps it shut.

 

“You told me I could talk to him if I needed to… and I did. I needed to know the truth and since you wouldn’t tell me, I asked him,” she says somewhat defiantly.

 

“What did he say, exactly?” Danny can’t stop himself from asking.

 

“He told me Catherine came and surprised him. He admitted he slept with her. Why didn’t you tell me? I had a right to know,” her voice is raised and she’s agitated.

 

Danny takes a few seconds to get his emotions under control and continues. “Look, Grace… it’s complicated…”

 

“Why do adults always say that!”

 

“Because sometimes it’s true!” Danny retorts.

 

“What’s so complicated about the fact that he cheated on you?”

 

Danny sighs and takes a minute to gather his thoughts. “Look, Grace… Steve comes from a background that’s… well, it’s different from yours and mine.   Being in the military… there’s not a lot of tolerance there, and Steve had to… he felt like he had to more or less hide who he was.”

 

“You mean that he’s gay?” she asks candidly.

 

“Well, yeah… and he spent so many years hiding it that it’s hard to stop doing that sometimes. And when Catherine showed up, he… well, he wasn’t able to tell her about me and him.”

 

“Are you saying he didn’t mean it?”

 

“I’m saying… I’m saying I don’t think he ever intended to do what he did… that sometimes… circumstances get out of our control.”

 

“Like you and the guy in Colombia?”

 

Danny tries not to flinch, but he’s pretty sure Grace sees it anyway. “Yeah… like me and the guy in Colombia,” he says tightly.

 

“Then why don’t you two get back together? He said he was sorry for what he’d done. You could forgive him.”

 

“It’s not that simple, Grace. There’s more to it than just that…”

 

“Did he sleep with someone else?” she asks, alarm working its way back into her voice.

 

“ _NO_ , no… nothing like that.”

 

“Then what?”

 

“Look. Remember when we told you about the two of us, we asked you to keep it to yourself? Not tell your friends or other people?”

 

“I never told anyone, Danno.”

 

“I know, baby,” he says and scoots over to give her a quick kiss on the head and then sits back and puts his arm around her shoulder, pulling her in toward him. “And after we told you, we told your mom, and Kono and Chin and Lou, and all your Williams relatives. But… I had to push Steve really hard for him to agree to do that.”

 

“Why? No one cares. We were all happy for you.”

 

“Some people _do_ care, Grace. But not the people that matter to us and that’s what I was trying to help Steve understand, but, it was just… too difficult for him to be open about our relationship and I… I just didn’t want to live like that anymore.”

 

“In the closet…”

 

“Yeah, sweetie… in the closet.” He sighs and kisses her head again.

 

“So, did you break up with him for cheating, or because he didn’t want to tell people?”

 

Danny sighs again. “Both. Look, Grace. No relationship is perfect and everyone makes mistakes once in a while, and sometimes you can forgive someone for some of the things that they do, but not everything, you know? Sometimes when you add everything up, it’s just too much.”

 

Grace nods her head but doesn’t say anything for several long minutes – just wipes at the silent tears that continue to slide down her face every now and then. Eventually she sits up. “I’m tired. I think I’m gonna go take a shower and go to bed.”

 

“You don’t want any pizza?”

 

“I’m not hungry. I’m just gonna go to bed. Good night, Danno.”

 

“G’night, Monkey,” he says as he pulls her into a hug. “Danno loves you.”

 

“Love you, too,” she answers weakly and slips away to her room.

 

Danny collapses back on the couch and puts his hands over his face as he tries to gain control of his breathing; he had held it together through that conversation, but now that Grace is gone, his breath is hitching and his eyes are wet. Shit… he thought he was getting over all of this, but it’s clear to him that he isn’t. He wishes that he could just move on already, but he’s agonized to realize that he hasn’t moved on even one little bit. He still loves Steve and the wound is as fresh as it was the day it was made. Damn Steve McGarrett for his insidious way of getting under Danny’s skin and relentlessly not letting go…

 

When Danny goes in to check on Grace a half hour later he finds her lying on her side, her back to the door; he reaches down to tuck her covers up around her neck and bends to kiss her cheek.

 

“I forgave you,” Grace whispers.

 

Danny freezes and stares down at his daughter but her eyes are closed and he has no idea what to say. He knows instinctively that she’s talking about Reyes and the fact that Danny had murdered the man. That had been a difficult conversation to have with his daughter, and when he had broken down and apologized to her – for not being the man he wanted her to have for a father - she had hugged him and comforted him and told him it was okay.

 

Right now, he doesn’t know if she means that she forgave him and so he should forgive Steve, or if she means that it was a mistake for her to forgive him. Either way, he can’t help feeling that he’s let her down.

 

\-----

_ February 12, 2016, 6:29pm _

" _There's nothing more important than honor."_

 

His father’s voice is back in Steve’s head and he wants nothing more than to exorcise that ghost once and for all. As soon as he gets home from his encounter with Grace, he goes to his father’s study – the one room in his house that he’s barely touched - couldn’t bring himself to touch. He storms into the room and shoves everything off of the desk with one quick sweep of his arm. It’s incredibly cathartic, so he goes to the wall lined with bookshelves and starts pulling the books off – grabbing as many as he can at one time and flinging them to the floor – occasionally grasping a smaller one and throwing it violently across the room.

 

When he’s finished tearing apart the entire office, he sits on the floor, sweaty and limp, and looks around at the mess he’s created; he finds it entirely satisfying. When his rational mind finally comes back online, he notices his father’s old Merriam-Webster dictionary near his right foot and he pokes at it ruefully with his boot. One of John McGarrett’s favorite ways to make a point with his children - whether about something they’d done wrong, or something they hadn’t done right - was to sit them at his desk in this study, give them this dictionary, and direct them to write down pertinent definitions either 50 or 100 times, depending on how grave the transgression.

 

When Mary was nine and had been caught stealing candy from the corner store, he made her write the definition of ‘thief’ over and over and over. When Steve was 13 and had complained about one of his coaches riding him and pushing him, and said he wanted to quit football, he made Steve write the definitions of ‘perseverance’ ( _continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition_ ), ‘commitment’ ( _a promise to do or give something; the attitude of someone who works very hard to do or support something_ ), and ‘determination’ ( _firm or fixed intention to achieve a desired end_ ) – 100 times each.

               

By the time Steve had left home, he had learned to hate this dictionary, but he can’t stop from smiling now and appreciating his father’s lessons a little as he remembers the number of times that those particular three definitions had scrolled through his mind when things got difficult at the Academies. He had recited them in his mind like a mantra during BUD/S training as he swam and ran and pushed himself to the brink of exhaustion; those words in his head had kept him going – had gotten him through the most punishing physical tests he’d ever faced.

 

He reaches down and picks up the book and starts to flip through it. As he does, he catches sight of some of the circled or underlined words – indications that their father had assigned it to one of them: _courage; dependable; disrespectful; fair; foolish; guilty; gullible; honest; intelligent; intention; misjudge; patience; restraint; rude; successful; supposition; truant; willful._   

 

For some reason, Danny’s words drift into his mind:

_“I think you’re really mixed-up about what honor is.”_

 

He flips back to the ‘H’ section and pages through it, spotting “honest” and quirking a small smile as he remembers Mary sitting at the desk for hours with that one. He flips a couple pages further, looking for another circled word but doesn’t see any, so he goes back and looks more carefully. Eventually Steve finds what he’s looking for, but he blinks at the word in surprise when he sees that it’s not marked in any way. He has the startling realization - and then the clear memory – that his father had never had either of them write and memorize it.

 

_Honor: Honesty, fairness or integrity of one’s beliefs and actions._

 

Steve stares at the word and definition for a long time, all the while, Danny’s words growing louder and more insistent in his head.

 

_“I think you’re really mixed-up about what honor is.”_

 

Eventually, without thinking, he picks up a pen from the floor and writes the definition in the margin of the open page.

 

And then he writes it again, and again and again. He feels like he’s in a trance as he turns the pages of the dictionary and keeps writing, and he only stops when his hand starts cramping so badly that he can barely hold the pen any longer. He has no idea how many times he’s written it but he’s certain it’s well over 100, and he knows he’s substantially defiled the book. The sun is down and he can hardly see the pages anymore when he finally drops the pen and pushes the book from his lap. He can’t seem to keep his eyes open any longer so he curls over onto his side and within seconds he falls asleep in the middle of his father’s wrecked study.

 

 


	11. ...not gonna fade... (Part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooooo sorry for the lag between chapters! I worked on this every spare minute I could (I wasn't slacking off, I swear!) but this time of year RL is pretty chaotic. 
> 
> I really was back and forth and back and forth on whether I should wait and post this chapter complete or in halves. What I think of as the entire chapter is currently clocking in at 17,400 words. I gave it to KippyVee in halves because she's a really good beta and I didn't want to kill her - or have her kill me! She got the first half to me a short time ago but the second half will take another day or two. So... what to do? Post what I have now, or hold it to post all at once because I really intended it to be read together?
> 
> Obviously I decided to post - BUT ON ONE CONDITION... when I post the second half of this in a couple days, you have to go back and read this part first AGAIN, before you read what will be chapter 12 - because it really should be - and it is meant to be - read all as one progression of story line. Okay? You promise? Okay, then, you can read now...
> 
>  
> 
> Huge thanks to KippyVee, who is going above and beyond with this behemoth of a chapter - and who was the one who convinced me to post this half rather than wait.

 

_April 14, 2016 _

_‘Honesty, fairness or integrity of one’s beliefs and actions’._ Steve finds he can’t stop himself from scribbling the definition of ‘honor’ on any available surface: the newspaper, once he’s done reading it; junk mail; paper bags; post-it notes … anything at all. He does it absent-mindedly, thinking about it and not thinking about it at the same time. Trying to rectify the problem in his head: how can he be an honorable man in his father’s eyes and not in Danny’s?

 

\---

 

_ April 27, 2016, 4:41pm _

Danny and Phil roll up on a dumpy apartment complex after a call from a neighbor complaining of suspected drug dealing because of sketchy looking characters coming and going at all hours. Officer Yamada and his rookie partner, Officer Reynolds, are there for back-up and Danny almost laughs at how Reynolds looks like he is about to shit his pants; second week on the job and he’s obviously nervous as hell.

 

A quick glance through the window gives them probable cause to enter, seeing visible meth paraphernalia on the table. Yamada kicks in the door and the four of them swarm at the four heavily-drugged - and very surprised - occupants.

 

“Put your hands behind your back,” Reynolds says to the suspect he’s grabbed.

 

Danny mentally rolls his eyes at the unnecessarily polite tone. He doesn’t look over though because he’s too busy wrestling his guy into cuffs. But that was probably a mistake because two seconds later all hell breaks loose.

 

 _“Aaahhh! Son-of a…!”_ Danny yells as Reynold’s suspect pushes the rookie to the ground, grabs a plate from off the table and swings wildly, shattering it on Danny’s forehead while the open end of the unfilled half of his handcuff catches Danny right at the corner of his eye. Blood starts flowing into his eye immediately so that he’s half-blinded, but he has the presence of mind to kick his suspect’s leg out from beneath him so that he falls flat on his face on the floor.

 

Reynold’s suspect starts to bolt for the door but Danny grabs the back of his collar and yanks him backward, using the guy’s own momentum to throw him down. With blood dripping (okay, maybe it’s pouring) down his face onto the tweaker’s shirt, Danny rolls him onto his stomach and jams the other wrist into the cuffs.

 

The whole thing is over in a few short seconds, and as Danny stands up, he stumbles a little and wipes at his face. “ _Shit,”_ he mumbles, wincing as he finally puts his hand up to the wounds and then pulls it back to find it completely covered in more blood. Fucking face and scalp wounds – always bleed so damn much.

 

“Detective, are you alright?” Reynolds asks, quickly regaining his feet and rushing over to Danny. Phil and Yamada look over in concern from where they are still working their suspects into cuffs themselves.

 

“Fine… I’m fine. Do me a favor – deal with these idiots,” he says, gesturing at the two cuffed suspects who are squirming desperately on the floor. “I’m gonna go try to clean up a little.”

 

The bathroom is a disgusting cesspool and there’s not a clean _anything_ in it – there’s not even any toilet paper - so he unbuttons his shirt and literally rips his undershirt off of himself; one quick, brutal yank and the material is rended from his body. He wets the shirt and gently wipes at the wounds and the copious blood on his face, hissing at the sting; the flow of blood has not slowed from either cut, so he wads up the shirt and uses it apply pressure to both at once. The sight of bright red blood on his face is disturbing for too many reasons so he tries to do most of the work without looking at his reflection.

 

“Fuck,” Danny mutters a few minutes later when he pulls the make-shift dressing away and finally looks back in the mirror over the bathroom sink. There’s little, if any, let-up in the blood flow and he reluctantly admits to himself that he is probably going to need stitches.

 

“You okay?” Phil asks, looking up with mild concern as he sorts through the crap on the table when Danny walks back into the room. His eyes widen a little when he takes in just how red and saturated the white t-shirt is.

 

“Yes. No,” Danny sighs bitterly. “Won’t stop bleeding. Think I’m gonna need a couple stitches.”

 

“Oh,” Phil says, sounding disappointed. “Do you want me to…?” Phil stops, letting Danny fill in the rest in his head.

 

Do you want me to take you to the hospital? Do you want me to sit and wait with you for two hours while they fix you up? Do you want me to call my wife and tell her not to hold dinner?

 

No one is less thrilled with the idea of a side trip to the ER than Danny, but he can’t see any other option; this motherfucker is not going to stop bleeding on its own and Danny doesn’t have the skills to sew it up himself.

 

“Sorry…” Danny starts.

 

“I’ll take him,” Officer Reynolds pipes up, sounding earnest and guilty all at once. “I don’t mind.”

 

Yamada scrutinizes the rookie. “Phil?” he asks as he turns to Longmeier.

 

“Uh, yeah. You go ahead and take him in. Mike and I will finish up here and head back in to start the processing and paperwork,” Danny can hear the hopeful optimism back in Phil’s voice; he may get that hot dinner after all.

 

“Sure… whatever,” Danny mumbles as he waves his hand in acquiescence. He can’t miss how Phil looks relieved and he doesn’t really want to put a definition to how he’s feeling about the whole exchange.

 

Danny’s head pounds as they drive to the hospital. The wounds are still weeping blood and the t-shirt is almost completely red. He’s suddenly very tired and so he puts his head back and closes his eyes, trying not to wince with every bump they hit. He would swear he can _feel_ Reynolds glancing nervously at him every five seconds or so and Danny knows he’s trying to work up his courage.

 

“Detective,” the rookie starts, hesitantly.

 

“Shhhhhh,” Danny stops him, because he really does not want to talk right now. He doesn’t even want to think. He does not want to think about how he should try to reassure this kid who is shitting his pants because he thinks that it’s his fault that Danny was hurt. He does not want to think about how his partner was more worried about his fucking dinner than about Danny’s busted head; and he definitely does not want to think about how much he misses whichever version of aneurysm face Steve would be pointing at him right now if he saw the bodily fluids seeping from Danny’s wounds.

 

“I’m really…” he tries again.

 

“Shhhhh,” Danny says, louder this time, and Reynolds doesn’t say another word for the rest of the drive.

 

Two hours and seventeen minutes later, he has three stitches by his eye and five more on his forehead, and when he walks out of the exam room with an ice pack carefully settled against his face, he tries really hard to tamp down on the though that maybe he’ll find Steve waiting there for him. He is both disappointed and relieved to be greeted only by Officer Reynolds.

 

The rookie jumps up as soon as he sees Danny. “Detective, how are you? Are you alright?” he asks, sounding uneasy and miserable.

 

“Good as new,” he says as he pulls the ice pack away and gestures vaguely toward the butterfly bandages he’s sporting over the neat, black thread.

 

“Look, I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am. I know it was my fault…” Reynolds says quickly, and Danny’s pretty sure he’s been practicing that in his head.

 

Danny sighs and rolls his eyes a little. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s just go, huh?” he says walking past the rookie and straight out to the car.

 

Thankfully, Reynolds takes his cue from Danny and doesn’t try to talk on the way back to HPD either.

 

He sits with the ice pack, watching the street pass by. It’s days like this that find Danny’s thoughts in the past and have him wishing like hell that he could go back… back to before that terrible day so he could somehow divert the coming disaster. If only he had called Rachel first and found out Grace was sick so that he wouldn’t have left at all. Or If only he had lingered just a few minutes longer and been there to open the door to Cath; maybe she would have understood immediately, or maybe Steve would have had the courage to tell her the truth. Either way, the morning wouldn’t have ended with Steve and Cath in bed together and Danny’s entire life in tatters.

 

But he knows there’s no going back in life, so instead he keeps trudging mindlessly forward with no destination in mind; not able to see clearly what the future might look like, and unable to cut the ties that bind him to his past. He knows his thoughts are flowing in a hopeless circle – they have been for seven months - but it’s like a perpetual motion machine that he can’t make stop.

 

He’s finally able to change track by thinking about Reynolds and by the time they pull into the HPD parking lot, Danny’s guilt has gotten the better of him and he is feeling sorry for the kid. He has no doubt that the rookie has been sweating it for the last three hours, worried that today’s messy bust is going to sink his career. Danny remembers being this green back in New Jersey; he remembers the sudden understanding of the responsibility he carried and the realization that one mistake could get someone hurt or killed. It was terrifying. Truthfully, Danny still finds it terrifying, but years on the force have smoothed down the rough edges of the daily fear, and like so many other things in his life, he’s learned to mostly not think about it.

 

When Reynolds puts the car in ‘park’, Danny finally takes pity on the kid; he doesn’t move to get out of the car, instead he turns slightly toward the young officer. Reynolds sees and turns, looking nervously back at him.

 

“Was this your first meth bust?” Danny asks, his bone-deep exhaustion apparent.

 

“Yes, sir,” Reynolds answers, nervous.

 

“Okay, listen… and remember this,” Danny tells him, putting as much stern gruffness as he can into his words, wanting to make sure this kid doesn’t forget this lesson. “Tweakers are jittery and unpredictable. You can’t mess around with them – you gotta slap the cuffs on them quick as you can.”

 

“Yes, sir,” Reynolds replies, his eyes wide and earnest.

 

“You can’t reason with them, and you can’t be polite with them…” Danny continues. “You gotta just get them under control fast, even if that means you gotta be a little rough.” He should probably explain things a little more but his head is pounding harder now and he mostly just wants to be done with this whole thing.

 

“Yes, sir,” he nods vigorously.

 

“Look. It’s gonna be okay. No one expects you to be perfect with two weeks under your belt. You can learn from this and you’ll be a better cop next time. You got it?” Danny says, giving him his ‘serious cop’ face.

 

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” he answers, the slightest hint of a smile becoming visible.

 

“Good. Go find Yamada - he’ll walk you through the paperwork on this one,” Danny finishes, waving vaguely toward the building in front of them. The rookie scrambles out of the car and then stops and waits for Danny who is moving quite a bit more slowly. “Go… I’m fine!” Danny glares at him and the kid darts away.

 

When he gets inside HPD, Danny goes to the locker room and throws his ruined shirt in the garbage before grabbing the extra he keeps in his locker.  Phil is apparently long gone – finished with his end of the paperwork and not waiting for Danny to get back. Danny can’t exactly blame the guy; it’s a minor injury and he shouldn’t be expecting his partner to be sitting around wringing his hands in worry.  Should he?

 

Danny is sitting in the locker room, leaning against his locker with his eyes closed trying to muster enough energy to go to his desk and write up his version of this idiotic day, when Yamada finally tracks him down.

 

“You okay?” Mike asks him, sitting on the bench across from him and scrutinizing Danny’s face.

 

“Fine. Just a few stiches, like I thought,” Danny says, opening his eyes and setting the mostly-warm ice pack on the bench.

 

“Listen, I’m sorry about the kid… he’s still pretty green…”

 

Danny waves him off. “Dealing with tweakers is always a little hairy…”

 

“He told me you talked to him. It was good of you to do that.”

 

Danny just grunts noncommittally.

 

Yamada looks closely at him. “You sure you’re alright?”

 

Danny closes his eyes and nods a little. “Fine… headache,” he says to explain his current state of lethargy, which truthfully has less to do with his minor injuries and more to do with the fact that he is feeling sorry for himself.

 

“Okay,” Yamada says, and starts to get up to leave, then hesitates and sits back down again.

 

Danny cracks open the one eye that isn’t mostly swollen shut and looks at him quizzically.

 

“Why’d you leave 5-0?” he asks Danny abruptly.

 

“Excuse me?” Danny asks, caught off-guard, both eyes open now.

 

“I was just wondering, you know…? I mean, it seems like 5-0 would be a pretty good gig.”

 

Danny can’t stop from flicking a small smile. “It is.”

 

“Then why’d you leave? Why the hell are you here in Vice busting meth-heads when you could be working the Governor’s Task Force?”

 

Danny sighs. “Look, that’s… mostly personal, okay? McGarrett and I didn’t see eye to eye on some things. One of us had to go and it’s his task force so it wasn’t going to be him.”

 

Yamada doesn’t say anything, just looks at Danny for a moment. “You know… most of the cops here respect what 5-0 does; respect all of you… you’re great cops. All the rest of the crap doesn’t matter. I mean… If you and McGarrett…” Yamada stops but - and Danny’ll hand it to him - he never breaks eye contact despite his clear discomfort.

 

Danny searches Yamada’s face - making sure the man is saying what Danny thinks he’s saying - he knows there have been rumors about him and Steve, but honestly, he thinks they were more Akamu's malicious bullshit than anything grounded in actual truth.  He stares at Mike for a few seconds and tries to decide what he should say in return. He wants to tell him, ‘thank you’, and, ‘he appreciates that’, but then thinks, why bother since it’s a moot point now? Steve’s baggage has already ruined their relationship and driven them apart for good, and Danny more-or-less doubts he’ll ever really be interested in another man anyway. Steve was an anomaly for him – singular in so many ways - and Danny’s pretty sure he’s going to stick to women from now on.

 

“Okay,” he finally settles on, and leaves it at that.

 

Yamada looks at him for another moment and then nods and stands up and leaves.

 

Danny closes his eyes again and starts back down the hopeless path of wishing they could go back to the day Cath had shown up. It’s stupid, he knows it. He knows he can’t change the past, and honestly, he doubts it would have even changed the future. If it hadn’t been Catherine, something else down the line would probably have come up to derail the two of them. With the benefit of hindsight, it seems inevitable to Danny that Steve’s inability to be honest about who he really is would have doomed their relationship one way or another.

 

He does sincerely wish he could just _forgive_ Steve, but try as he might, he just can’t seem to. He feels shitty about that given Grace’s words to him a couple of months ago, but he can’t find it in himself to absolve Steve of what he did… to excuse him from blame for ruining what they had had together. Danny honestly doesn’t know if the day will ever come when he would be able to do that.

 

Still distracted by his thoughts, he takes a deep breath before he braces himself and stands up. His head throbs like the worst kind of migraine and the local anesthetic is wearing off, so the wounds themselves pound in time with his heartbeat. He steadies himself and waits for the initial wave of pain to subside a little so he can shuffle back to his desk and finish the damn paperwork. He stops at the sink and runs cold water to gently splash onto his face and he realizes that what he really wants to do is go home and drink himself into a stupor. He knows it’s a really stupid idea when his head is already killing him, but after a day as crappy as today, it sounds like exactly the right thing to do; the events of the day have dredged up a lot of emotional turmoil for him and all he really wants to do is settle it back down.  

 

He pats his face dry with a paper towel and tries to muster the endurance he’ll need to go do the paperwork, but when he looks up to see his discolored and puffy reflection in the mirror, he stops. He is sickeningly reminded of the too many times he’s looked at Steve’s face in the same condition: beaten, bloody and bruised. And the too many times he’d sat in the waiting room, or by Steve’s bedside. He stares at his face and has a sudden recurrence of the feeling of emptiness he had at not seeing Steve’s face, creased with concern, waiting for him once he’d been stitched up.

 

Danny chucks the paper towel into the bin and chokes out a frustrated noise. He just wants to _move on_ already… why can’t he move on? _Fuck it,_ he thinks, the paperwork can wait… drinking himself into oblivion sounds like a much better idea.

 

\-----

 

_ May 31, 2016 _

Five weeks later, Danny notices murmuring in the Vice bullpen and he looks up from his desk to see Steve staring in his direction with a thunderous expression on his face. Danny turns and glances over his shoulder to see if maybe there’s someone behind him, but there’s not and when he looks back, Steve is still looking like he’s going to jump over the counter and murder someone with his bare hands. Danny doesn’t know what the hell is going on but he sure as hell doesn’t want Steve going off and making a scene at HPD. That would only make his life here more difficult.

 

He quickly stands and walks over to his former-partner - all eyes in the room on them - and firmly grabs Steve’s arm, pulling him toward a small conference room down the hall. Once they get inside and the door is closed, Danny turns and looks at his ex-partner who is still wearing that face.

 

“What are you doing here?” he hisses. “And _what_ is your problem?”

 

Steve finally pulls his arm out of Danny’s grip. “I’m here to pick up a suspect," he answers defensively.  "And I don’t have a problem,” .

 

“You don’t have a problem? Then why are you wearing version #3 of aneurysm face?”

 

“I’m not wearing any face,” Steve starts, and then flicks his eyes to Danny’s hairline and back. It’s quick, but not quick enough that Danny doesn’t see it and realize that Steve’s looking at the shiny pink scars that weren’t there the last time they saw each other. Danny does not want to do this – does not want the reminder of that day and the feelings it had elicited in him - so he rolls his eyes and starts toward the door to leave.

 

Steve stops him with a hand on his upper arm, firm enough to make a point, but not enough to actually stop Danny if he wanted to extricate himself. “What happened?” Steve asks softly.

 

Danny sighs, looking back at Steve, feeling disconcerted at the concern he sees there – the concern he missed when it happened. “ _Nothing_. It’s no big deal. A tweaker got away from a rookie on a meth bust, smashed a plate on my head. A couple stitches. I’m fine.”

 

The thunderous look is back. “Where was your partner?” Steve asks tightly.

 

Danny rubs his face with his free hand, pointedly not thinking about how he hasn’t torn his other arm free of Steve’s warm grip. When he finally answers, he makes himself sound angrier than he feels because he knows if he gets into this with Steve right now he will be emotionally wrecked the rest of the day, and he is _not_ a fifteen-year-old girl.

 

“Have you forgotten that you got me shot on our first day working together?” Danny barks, and Steve flinches almost imperceptibly, but Danny catches it.   “Besides… we are not responsible for each other anymore. So, let’s not do this, okay?” he glares at Steve and actively ignores the memory of how much he had missed his ex-partner when Danny had pints of blood gushing from his head.

 

Steve seems to startle at Danny’s words and his gaze shifts from the scar on Danny’s forehead back to Danny’s eyes. He drops his hand from Danny’s arm and then tears his eyes away, looking at the door behind him instead. “You’re right. I’m sorry... I didn’t mean… never mind.”

 

And suddenly Steve is gone and Danny finds himself standing alone in the small conference room feeling oddly bereft.

 

Danny can count the number of times he’s seen Steve since last September on one hand, but it’s hard to deny the fact that his heartrate picks up just a little bit when he comes across Steve’s name or picture in the newspaper. He can’t deny that he still reaches across the bed to the empty space beside himself in the early morning hours, when he’s on that disorienting precipice between asleep and awake. And he can’t deny that Steve’s hand on his arm has left a tingling that has nothing to do with his grip.

 

Turns out, moving on is easier said than done.

 

\-----

 

_ June 20, 2016, 5:15pm _

Steve can hear the voices of his team members in the bullpen, unwinding at the end of a busy day. He sits solitary in his office, as he often does these days, and half-listens, smiling at their easy camaraderie. He is scratching the definition absently on the back of a misprint from the recycle bin; he’s got a numbered list going and so far, off-and-on today, he’s written it 67 times.

 

“Oh God, can you imagine if Danny had been there?” Kono laughs, and Steve’s ears perk up to hear the name.

 

“Oh, man, he woulda had your ass, Kelly!” Lou chimes in.

 

“Don’t you dare tell him!” Chin practically yells and they all laugh.

 

Steve has no idea what they are talking about, but he finds himself standing and making his way to sand in the doorway so he can hear them better.

 

“You know,” Kono says as the laughter fades. “Sometimes I’m still pissed at him for leaving us.”

 

Steve can hear the slightest edge of long-held resentment.

 

“Hey, Kono, let it go,” Chin gently chides his cousin. “You know he must have had a good reason…”

 

“I just don’t get it though. I mean, what the hell could have been so awful that he couldn’t talk to us? Huh? What did he do that he had to just bolt like that?”

 

Steve steps into the room and clears his throat, and all three heads look up at him in surprise. “Danny didn’t do anything,” he says, his mouth set in a stern line.

 

“Sorry, boss. Didn’t realize you were still here,” Kono says sheepishly, and Chin and Lou look slightly uneasy. Rule #1 in the bullpen: don’t talk about Danny.

 

Steve walks over to the table and looks at his team. “Danny didn’t do anything,” his says again. “And you shouldn’t be assuming he did.”

 

Kono ducks her head a little.

 

_‘…maybe I don’t think you’re such an honorable man right now…’_

 

“I cheated on Danny,” Steve says abruptly. “With Catherine. Danny... walked in on us.” Steve looks each of his stunned teammates in the eyes. “He left because of me and what I did.”

 

There is a moment of complete silence.

 

“You and Catherine cheated on Danny?” Lou asks, sounding surprised but with a very hard edge to his voice; given what happened with Clay and Diane not long ago, infidelity is an especially touchy subject for him.

 

“How could you…?” Kono gasps simultaneously.

 

Chin remains quiet, but he’s wearing an angry expression and his face is drained of color.

 

“Catherine didn’t know about me and Danny,” Steve rushes to clarify. “She showed up and surprised me. I was… afraid to admit my relationship with Danny and things got… out of control. It was wrong. I know it. I knew it then. It was wrong…” Steve blows out a breath. “It was the biggest mistake of my life and I’ve paid for it… we all have, and I’m sorry. I’ll always regret it. But… but my point is… Danny didn’t do anything, and you shouldn’t blame him for leaving. I don’t. He did the right thing and… and he deserves your support. So… just don’t talk about him that way.” By the time he stops rambling, his face is red and his body is vibrating from the surge of adrenaline in his blood.  

 

The rest of the team stares at him, speechless again.

 

“Why didn’t Danny tell us that?” Chin eventually asks, sounding bewildered.

 

“Because… because he’s a good cop and he cares about you. Because he didn’t want to say anything that might cause friction on the team,” Steve uses all of his reserves of courage to continue holding their stares. “Look, I guess I used that as an excuse not to tell you before, but I’m telling you now. I apologize to all of you for my behavior – I’m sorry that what I did drove your team member - your friend - away and I’m sorry that it’s going to make you look at me differently. But I deserve that… Danny doesn’t. So if any of you want to leave, I’ll understand. You can give me your letters of resignation and I’ll do whatever I can to get you positions over at HPD,” Steve finishes, then turns and walks out of the office, leaving stunned teammates in his wake.

 

As he leaves the Palace, he is surprised at the enormous sense of relief he feels. When he walked into the bullpen just moments ago and confessed his sin, he had an unparalleled feeling of fear and a sense of dread. But that’s gone and now he just feels… free. He knows with absolute certainty that he has done the right thing and he feels better than he has in months. With the truth finally out, the weight of his deception has finally lifted a bit off of his shoulders and he feels more like the person he wants to be.

 

\-----

_ June 20, 2016, 6:15pm _

Danny opens his door to find Kono standing in front of him with a bag of take-out in her hand and an irritated expression on her face.

 

“We need to talk,” she says brusquely as she shoves the bag into his chest and pushes past him into his house.

 

“Oh…kay,” he says, following her into his kitchen, entirely perplexed. “About anything in particular?” he asks.

 

Kono grabs plates from the cupboard and slams them down on the small center island before turning and opening the refrigerator, returning with two beers. She twists their caps off and thrusts one into Danny’s hand, grabbing the food bag from his other. She completely misses his bewildered look as he turns and picks up another already-open beer from the side counter and slips it back into the refrigerator.

 

“Why the hell didn’t you tell us?” she demands, roughly grabbing the food containers out of the bag, sloshing some onto the counter as she does.

 

“Tell you what? Kono, I have no idea what you’re talking about!” he answers, grabbing a dish cloth and wiping up after her.

 

Kono stills and glares at Danny. “Why didn’t you tell us that the reason you and Steve broke up was because he slept with Catherine.”

 

Danny’s brow furrows in discomfort. “Who… _who_ told you that?” he asks.

 

“Steve told us.”

 

“Really?” he asks, genuinely surprised.

 

“Yes, really.”

 

 _“Why?”_ he asks, now curious.

 

“I don’t know… well, maybe I do know," she admits.  "He may have overheard us talking in the bullpen when we were talking about how much we missed you, and I may have said something about being a little mad at you for leaving and never telling us why…”

 

Danny cocks his head and quirks an eyebrow at her.

 

“I’m sorry, okay! But I’ve been a little mad at you for that…” she responds guiltily.

 

Danny makes an impatient gesture for her to keep going.

 

Kono rolls her eyes at him. “Anyway, we were talking about how you left without saying anything,” she looks at him pointedly. “And he came out of his office and took the blame and told us what happened.”

 

“Huh…” Danny says, still sounding surprised.

 

“Danny – why didn’t you ever say anything?” her voice is a mixture of frustration and annoyance.

 

He shrugs. “Because Steve is the head of 5-0,” he answers matter-of-factly, finally sitting down on the stool and reaching for one of the take-out containers.

 

“Danny!” she says sharply, causing him to pause and look back up at her. “What does that have to do with anything?”  

 

He sets the container back down. “Come on, Kono. What would you have done if I had told all of you – expected you to take sides?”

 

“We would have sided with you,” she answers with certainty.

 

“Right. Look, I appreciate that – I do,” he says sincerely. “But you guys have a job to do. I knew I couldn’t go back to 5-0 and work with Steve, but you still needed to work with him, and if you’re divided as a team, someone’s going to get hurt out there. I don’t want that on my conscience.”

 

“Well, we know now,” she says, with anger in her voice.

 

“Look, Kono, my concern still stands. _Please_ don’t let this cause problems between you and Steve,” he implores. “He’s a damn good cop and leader and he’s your boss, and that deserves your loyalty and respect. You can’t let what happened between me and Steve get in the way of that – one has nothing to do with the other.”

 

Kono stares at Danny for a minute and then seems to deflate. “I feel so awful about this.”

 

“I know that. It’s really what I was trying to avoid in the first place. It was bad enough what I was going through – I didn’t want the people around me to have to go through it as well.”

 

“Danny, we’re your friends.”

 

Danny smiles. “And I can’t tell you how much I’ve appreciated that – over the last several months more than ever before. None of this changes any of that.”

 

Kono is staring at him and he can see her mind whirring, not wanting to let things go. “I just… I honestly can’t believe he did that, Danny. Why would he do something like that to you? I mean, I know he had history with Catherine, but the two of you… it was so much more than he and Catherine ever seemed to have.”

 

Danny looks at her for a few seconds, trying to decide just how much he wants to get into this with her. “Look, Steve’s got a lot of baggage, you know? I talked to Catherine… after…” Kono gives him a flabbergasted look and Danny nods. “And, I think I kinda get why he did what he did. I mean, I knew the military and his father put Steve through an emotional wringer, but she gave me a little more perspective on that.”

 

Kono starts to protest, but he cuts her off with a gesture.

 

“I’m in no way saying that excuses his behavior, but… I’m just saying maybe I kinda get how it could have happened.”

 

She gives him a disbelieving look and shakes her head.

 

Danny sighs and rubs the pink scar on his forehead for a second. “Look, I’m not going to sit here and tell you I wasn’t righteously pissed off about it for a long time. What Steve did,” Danny pauses and looks away for a moment. “What Steve did hurt more than I actually thought anything could, and… quite honestly, I don’t know if I’ll ever get to a point where I can forgive him. But, I guess I’m trying not holding a grudge either. I’m kinda trying to be done with being angry. Mostly I wanna move on with my life.”

 

Kono scrutinizes his face. “And are you?” she eventually asks perceptively.

 

Danny sighs. “I’m trying. More successfully some days than others,” he admits honestly.

 

“I wish you would come back to 5-0.”

 

“And I sincerely love you for that… but, I gotta tell you… I love you even more for bringing me this food, so could we please eat it now before it gets cold?” Danny says, obviously trying to shift the conversation to another topic.

 

She looks at him for few seconds, clearly conflicted, trying to decide whether to let this go or not.   “Yeah… okay, Danny,” she finally answers, slowly nodding her head.

 

Danny gets up and walks around to stand next to Kono, wrapping his arms around her; she readily leans into his embrace. “Thanks, babe, for everything,” he says and then kisses her affectionately on the top of her head.

 

Kono squeezes her eyes shut and nods her head against his shoulder, holding him tight. After a moment, he kisses her head again and then they both let go; Danny goes back to his stool and they both dig into the food, each of them ducking their head for a minute so the other won’t see their shining eyes.

 

\-----

_ June 20, 2016, 7:30pm _

Steve opens his front door to find Chin, holding a six-pack of Longboards in hand. “Thought you could use a friendly face.”

 

“ _Are_ you a friendly face?” Steve asks, his face is neutral but his voice sounds wary.

 

Chin raises an eyebrow. “Would I be here if I weren’t?” he asks, pushing past Steve into the living room.

 

Without discussing it, they both head straight through the house and out into the back yard, but Steve steers him toward the patio furniture rather than the two chairs by the water. Chin opens two bottles and hands one to Steve and they sit in long silence before either of them speak.

 

“Why did you tell us that today?” Chin finally asks into the quiet night.

 

Steve hesitates. “I don’t know. I didn’t really plan it. But then I heard you guys talking about Danny…” He shrugs. “It didn’t seem right to let it go unsaid.”

 

Chin just nods and they both sip at their beers.

 

“I’ve been thinking a lot about honor since all this happened…” Steve eventually continues.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“My father used to talk about honor a lot – about being an honorable man…” Steve is staring out at the ocean.

 

“I remember,” Chin says, and Steve turns his head sharply. “What? Did you think you were the only person he said that kind of stuff to? He drilled it into me, too… into all the young cops…”

 

Steve huffs a little, turning back to watch the waves. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised about that. It was important to him.”

 

“Yeah, it was,” Chin looks over at Steve’s profile. “Always seemed like it was important to you, too.”

 

Steve just nods slowly and takes another sip of his beer.

 

A few more long minutes pass in silence before Steve blows out a breath and turns to look at Chin. “So… are you all leaving?”

 

Chin looks at him frankly. “Why would we do that?”

 

“Because I lied to you all this time. Because I did something incredibly stupid and wrong and betrayed Danny’s trust – and yours.”

 

“Look, Steve. I won’t pretend that we weren’t all pretty shocked by what you told us today… and feeling pretty bad for Danny.” Steve ducks his head. “But we’ve all done things we regret. We’re Danny’s friends, Steve, but we’re _your_ friends, too, you know. We’ll get past it… no one’s leaving 5-0...”

 

Steve jerks his head up, shocked; he stares at Chin, eyes wide with stunned appreciation, but before he can find the words to respond, Chin speaks up again.

 

“Nine months is a long time to be holding all this in, brah. Have you talked to _anyone_ about it since it happened?” Chin asks, knowing Steve’s main go-to person to talk for the previous five years would have been Danny himself.

 

He shakes his head slowly. “No. Well… Mary, a little bit. Not much.”

 

“You wanna talk to me? I’m here to listen if you want,” Chin says - not pushing, just offering.

 

Steve is grateful to his friend for the offer, even though he’s never been much of a talker when it comes to his emotions. But as he stares back at Chin, he considers the possibility that his reticence about talking is part of what landed him here in the first place. So he opens his mouth and pushes some words out. He starts haltingly - unused to releasing his emotions in this way – but soon enough the words are flowing freely and it feels liberating and cathartic. He talks to Chin about his past, and about his father and about what happened between him and Danny. Chin listens without judgement, nodding his head at the right times and offering encouragement at others, and it’s such a relief that after almost two straight hours of non-stop talking, Steve finds that he’s exhausted, so he finally stops, rests his head back and closes his eyes.

 

After a while – Steve’s honestly not sure how long – he hears Chin stand up and feels the empty beer bottle gently pulled from his hand.

 

“I’m gonna head out. Get some sleep, okay? We’ll see you in the morning,” Chin says, and then slips quietly back through the house.

 

The next day, and for a few days, there’s a little tension in the air at the Palace, but soon enough, it dissipates and things more or less return to normal. Steve is amazed that his friends and teammates can know the worst about him and still embrace him as a friend. They haven’t chosen Danny over him – or vice versa; they’ve just recognized him as the flawed person he is and accepted him anyway. His surprise at that never seems to go away.

 

\-----

 

_ July 29, 2016: _

Steve’s annual SEAL reunion rolls around and even though he has no enthusiasm for it this year, he goes anyway because a couple of his buddies will not stop bugging him about attending and he has no real excuse not to; there are no particularly pressing cases at work and the reunion is in L.A., so the travel is easy. Steve gets on the plane, more or less on autopilot, but something pulls at his subconscious and he finds he is facing it with an increasing sense of dread.

 

He gets in late on Friday night and meets Garcia and Plonik at a local bar; the three of them – along with Freddie - had been inseparable during BUD/S. Garcia’s been out longer than Steve, but Plonik just retired last year, so they plan to meet the night before the official opening to catch up before they all get distracted by the couple hundred other guys the next day.

 

Saturday morning almost always features some sort of competition.  This year it's a golf tournament, which turns almost comical; anyone who thinks the PGA is competitive has never seen dozens of ex-Navy SEALs square off against each other on the links. Steve scores somewhere in the middle of the crowd and is satisfied – golf was never really his sport anyway.

 

Saturday evening consists of a dinner banquet with entertainment – this year a comedian – and afterward becomes something of a free-for-all in the bar. As the dinner speaker finishes and the banquet starts to break up, Steve finds the sense of dread he felt on the airplane returning, and as soon as he walks into the bar with Plonik, he understands exactly why.

 

Steve wonders how he always forgets about this part, but no, that’s not quite true, he admits to himself. He didn’t forget, he just willfully ignored it in the past. He is sitting alone at the bar – Plonik has disappeared somewhere – nursing his second beer, and he scans the room with growing discomfort. Too many of his cohort are behaving badly; they are drunk, loud and hitting on any breathing woman they get within arm’s reach of. He recognizes a couple of them as guys who have wives who are probably upstairs asleep right now and he squirms with discomfort while watching them, uncomfortable when he considers it in light of his own life-altering transgression.

 

After watching them for a moment, he decides he really just wants to get the hell out of here and he pulls out his phone to see if there’s an earlier flight he can catch back to Hawaii. He’s already scheduled on a 10:00 a.m. flight, but if he can find a flight even earlier, he’ll grab it. There’s one he can get on at 5:00 a.m. for a $75 rebooking fee and he doesn’t hesitate to press ‘purchase’. That done, he finishes his beer and starts to leave with the easy excuse of an early flight.

 

He stops, though, when he sees that one of the guys at an increasingly loud table is a kid he had sat with at dinner, John Connors – the one with the pregnant wife. He is younger than most of the men here – a knee injury had forced him out of active duty with the SEALs early - but he’s back in school getting an engineering degree and making the best of it. His wife is young and very sweet, and they clearly adore each other; they were both ecstatic about the impending birth of their daughter, due in two months. The way they talked about their yet-to-be born daughter reminded Steve too much of Danny and Grace and a wave of sadness had come over him at dinner. Now, he wonders how the kid ended up at a table full of jerks with a group of barely-clad women hanging on them.

 

Steve watches as a woman grabs Connors and pull him into a kiss. He knows these kinds of women – they’re everywhere a group of military guys gathers. He sees the kid jerk away a little and watches as the woman presses on aggressively anyway. Something in Steve’s stomach twists uncomfortably and he walks over to the table and taps Connors on the shoulder. The kid reacts slowly and when he turns his head, Steve can see that he’s drunk. He doesn’t blame him for that – this can be a hard-drinking group of guys - if anyone thought the golf outing was competitive, then they haven’t seen what a group of SEALs can do in a bar. It took Steve a few years to figure out that it’s one competition you don’t _want_ to win, because victory only means you’re feeling worse than everyone else the next day. But Connors is smashed and Steve winces to see the lipstick that the woman has left on his lips and face.

 

“Come with me,” Steve shouts at him over the crowd noise.

 

“Where’re we going?” he yells back with a sloppy grin on his face, even as he starts to stand.

 

Steve doesn’t answer him – just steers him over to a quieter corner of the bar.

 

“It’s not worth it,” Steve says firmly and gives Connors a penetrating look.

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

Steve tilts his head back toward the table, gesturing to where three women have draped themselves over the ex-SEALs sitting there, and one more is watching Connors and waiting for him to come back.

 

Connors looks at them and blinks and then turns back to Steve. “No… I’m not gonna …”

 

“Look, trust me when I tell you that those women do not want to take no for an answer, and if you have any more to drink, it’s going to start to seem like a good idea.”

 

“No…”

 

“Look, John,” Steve says, and the use of his given name where those are rarely heard seems to get his attention. “I’ve been where you are. You don’t want to make this mistake. Go upstairs to your wife. That girl over there is not worth ruining what looked to me like a pretty good thing.”

 

Connors looks back over at the table and Steve can tell he’s conflicted – that he knows he needs to get out of there but he also knows full well that if he leaves, he’ll probably be hearing about what a pussy he is at reunions for the next 25 years. Steve knows as well as anyone how intense the pressure to conform can be with this group.

 

“Hey… Connors,” Steve barks and snaps his fingers in front of the kid’s face, causing Connors to twitches his head back to look at Steve. Steve steps in to crowd him a little more. “If those jerks and what they think, are more important to you than your wife, then you shouldn’t have married her in the first place. I saw you at dinner… I know you love her. You’ve got a baby coming… Do you really want to throw that away because of a few drunk assholes who don’t give a shit about your marriage?”

 

Connors seems to sober at that and he looks back over to the table for a second but he is shaking his head even as he turns back. “No… no, you’re right. Jesus… what was I thinking? Yeah… I’m just… gonna go,” he says, gesturing over his shoulder.

 

“That’s a good idea,” Steve says and then grabs Connors’ jaw and looks pointedly at his face. “Stop in the bathroom on the way and clean yourself up,” he says releasing his face and giving him a shove toward the exit. He tracks the kid across the room to make sure he leaves and gives a quick wave when the kid turns around and throws a careless salute at Steve before he disappears out of the bar.

 

Steve breathes a small sigh of relief and then goes over to retrieve his jacket off of the barstool where he left it earlier. When he turns to leave the bar, he comes face to face with one of the drunk assholes from the table Connors just left.

 

“Who the hell are you, motherfucking Mother Teresa?” he asks, getting in Steve’s face.

 

Steve recognizes him as Commander Sikovic, someone that Steve has never much liked for exactly this reason. He’s arrogant, obnoxious and is constantly trying to be the biggest alpha dog in a room full of alpha dogs.

 

“Leave it alone, Sikovic. The guy’s married and his pregnant wife is upstairs,” Steve says tiredly.

 

“Why is it any of your goddamn business, McGarrett? Huh?” he asks, bumping his chest against Steve’s. “You always were a goddamn holier-than-thou prick!”

 

Not wanting things to escalate, Steve ignores the bump and takes a half-step back. “I said let it go. He doesn’t need your type of trouble.”

 

“Oh, and what kind of trouble is that?” he sneers, stepping in close again.

 

“The kind where you’re pushing a happily married kid into infidelity,” Steve’s voice is tight with anger, holding his ground this time.

 

“He must not be too happily married if he’s down here with us.”

 

“He’s drunk – and you’re a fucking asshole to disregard that and try to drag him down in the mud where you like to wallow.”

 

“ _Fuck you_ , McGarrett!”

 

“You’re not my type,” Steve quips easily, putting an end to the conversation and turning to walk away.

 

But Sikovic grabs his arm to stop him and when he does, Steve spins back around in a flash and darts one claw-like grip down between Sikovic’s legs and squeezes his balls – hard enough to make him squeak a little bit, but not quite hard enough to do any serious damage – the other hand applies a brutal grip to the meat of Sikovic’s hand between the thumb and forefinger. The asshole freezes his entire body and Steve feels a deep sense of satisfaction that he’s been able to catch him off-guard so easily.

 

“I told you to let it go,” Steve grits out between clenched teeth. “But if you want to continue this, I’ll be happy to leave you rolling on the floor and crying like a baby in front of your _‘date’_ and all your buddies over there when I walk away in 10 seconds.” The bar is crowded and loud and Steve has been subtle enough about it that no one has noticed this small confrontation going on.

 

Sikovic stares daggers at him but shakes his head in a jerky back-and-forth motion. Steve releases Sikovic’s hand and lets up slightly on the pressure he’s applying to his balls, but pauses; after a few seconds, he gives another quick squeeze, eliciting a gasp from his adversary, and then lets go completely. Sikovic sags against the bar and Steve can’t stop himself from smiling as he leaves.  

 

He goes to his room and packs his bag. It’s 1:00 a.m. already and his flight leaves in four hours so he doesn’t bother with sleep, just slips down to the front desk and checks out, then grabs a cab to the airport. He just wants to get the hell out of here and doesn’t care if that means sitting in an uncomfortable airport chair for a couple of hours.

 

He wanders around the airport for a while, gets some breakfast, reads a Sports Illustrated, and then spends thirty minutes writing the definition in the margins of the magazine, and by the time he’s boarded the plane, he’s looking forward to settling in and sleeping for the entire trip home. He’s asleep before the plane even takes off but a couple hours into the flight, he abruptly awakens and try as he might, he cannot seem to fall back asleep.

 

With nothing else to distract him, Steve grabs the in-flight magazine and starts scribbling in it while his thoughts drift back to last night. He doesn’t want to think about why it upset him so much to watch Connors, but he knows all the same. And he’s glad that at least he may have saved one guy from going through the despair and misery he’s been through in the last year.

 

He’s been to these reunions a half-dozen times and witnessed some of this same behavior each time.  Most of the SEALs were good guys - nothing in the way they behaved ever anything to call into question - but there were always a few whose behavior left a bad taste in his mouth, and his mind is filled with self-recrimination for never calling any of them on it.  It eats at him that he had never thought much about the damage these guys might be doing – the potential pain they were causing. It was like they all thought they’d been given a free pass to do whatever they wanted without repercussion and without anyone ever questioning their honor; that just the fact that they had served in the military made them honorable men, even if their behavior was cause to believe otherwise.

 

For the first time in his life, Steve wonders why honor and military are so automatically equated. Yes, it’s true that Steve believes that serving your country is an honorable thing to do – but when he looks back, he can always remember a handful of sailors who were anything but. Thinking about some of the guys at the bar last night, Steve remembers how they were just as bad when they were on active duty. Yes, they were focused and reliable when they were on missions, but as soon as they were out of the field, they became different people.

 

In the wake of the incident with Nick Taylor, Steve remembers Danny questioning the popular assertion that military equals honor, and Steve had gotten angry about that. But Danny had been right, hadn’t he? Danny had seen through Nick Taylor immediately and Steve wonders if he wouldn’t have as well, if he hadn’t been so blinded by Taylor’s military background. But at the time, Steve couldn’t believe that Bullfrog could be anything other than honorable because he had served with the man. In hindsight, Steve sees that fallacy for what it is and shakes his head at his own stupidity.    

 

By the time Steve fills the margins of the entire in-flight magazine with his words and starts casting around for something to continue on, he feels the first drop in altitude that signals the flight’s initial descent. He’s managed to fill a few hours writing and thinking and he’s startled to realize that his view of honor and the military seems to have undergone a sea change: serving in the military does not prove you to be an honorable person; honor isn’t something bestowed upon you the day you join up. It’s honorable to want to serve, but the appellation isn’t automatic - you still have to prove yourself worthy of it every day. He’s not sure that this nascent understanding helps resolve his underlying dilemma about his father and Danny, but somehow, he does feel like things are becoming more clear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the second half of this chapter will be up within a couple of days - I promise! After that, the last chapter - chapter 13 - will include an epilogue.
> 
> One final note: I know nothing about SEAL reunions, if they even exist, and I did no research whatsoever about it. The episode in this fic is purely artistic license.
> 
> Oh, also! I just wanted to say... I posted the first chapter of my first fic one year and three days ago, and the kind and generous response it got motivated me to continuing writing. So thank you to every single one of you who clicks on a link and reads someone else's story. And I've said it before, but your kudos and comments do help sustain fic writers in our darkest hours, so if you can see your way clear to doing either, please know it is truly, deeply appreciated! 
> 
> Yay fan fic! and fan fic fans!


	12. ...not gonna fade... (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so remember - you all promised that you would reread Chapter 11 before you read this one! Actually, it's no big deal, it's just that I really wrote Chapters 11 & 12 as one chapter and I intended it all to be read as one in order to get the flow and progression of the evolution of their thinking. But, given that Chapter 11 was almost 9,000 words, and this chapter came in at 8,670, I won't blame any of you for not wanting to go back and reread. Just... thanks for reading at all, I guess! 
> 
> And thank you KippyVee for turning these last 2 chapters around very quickly - especially when I know you were trying to get ready to go out of town!

__

_ September 30, 2016 _

“Are you a friend of Phil’s?” Danny is startled out of his thoughts at his partner’s retirement party. Phil had a mild heart attack a few weeks ago and it was a wake-up call for the man; he decided the day it happened that he didn’t want to die at work and so he gave his notice immediately, moving up his retirement by a couple of years. Danny had been leaning on the bar, idly rubbing the scar on his forehead and watching Tom Lombardi - trying to get a bead on the man since they would be partners starting the next day.  

 

When he turns, Danny feels a surge of something warm, deep in his gut as he takes in the good-looking guy standing next to him; he is tall and muscular, with dark hair and blue eyes. “Uh, yeah… I’m his partner. Danny Williams,” he says, offering his hand.

 

The other man takes it. He has a firm grip. “I’m Jason Longmeier, Phil’s nephew. It’s nice to meet you, Danny.”

 

“Likewise,” Danny answers, suddenly uneasy. He knew there was a chance the nephew would be here, and Danny had really hoped to avoid it. He has to admit, though, Jason is not at all what he envisioned when Phil mentioned him last year.

 

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Jason flashes a toothy smile – a very nice smile, actually.

 

Danny smiles back. “Have you?” he says with a forced laugh.

 

“All good, I assure you,” Jason answers and flags down the bartender.

 

“Well, that’s good to know.”

 

“He thinks you’re a very good cop.”

 

“Well, the feeling is mutual. I’m going to miss him.”

 

“And he keeps telling me he wants to set me up with you,” he adds with a smirk.

 

And there it is. Danny’ face pinks up as he gestures to the bartender that he’ll take another, too; he’s pretty sure he’s going to need substantially more alcohol to get through this evening.

 

“Um…”

 

Jason eyes twinkle. “Don’t worry… Uncle Phil is a little old-school. He seems to think that if two guys are gay and located in the same general zip code, then they are automatically made for each other. I’ve been telling him for years that I can’t imagine anything worse than being married to a cop,” he laughs.

 

“Sounds like you and my ex-wife have a lot in common,” Danny replies, taking a long drink from the new bottle.

 

“Oh yeah? Oh… wait… I’m sorry, are you not…?” Jason asks, quirking an eyebrow.

 

Danny has a flash back to his conversation with Phil all those months ago. “No, I am… well, sort of, I guess – sometimes. Not always…” Danny says, flustered just like the last time... he really should be better prepared. He pauses for a second and takes a breath. “So… this is awkward…” he adds, his face is still flushed but he’s trying to grin through his embarrassment.

 

“Sorry, I really didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Jason answers, sounding sincere. “Look, I could just… walk away… or, you could, you know… tell me some good stories about Uncle Phil that I could use in retaliation for this at our next family holiday,” he continues, easing them past the tension.

 

Danny breaks into a genuine grin and happily starts spinning his tales, because this he can do – Danny can talk. He makes sure to dig up every story he can about Phil – some he’d only heard second or third hand - and he and Jason spend the next hour or so talking and laughing and having a surprisingly good time.

 

As the party starts to break up and Jason settles his tab, he shifts toward Danny. “So, look… I know we both told Uncle Phil we weren’t interested, but… I’ve had a really good time tonight. I never expected to be saying this, but, do you want to maybe… get together sometime?”

 

“I thought you couldn’t think of anything worse than being married to a cop?” Danny huffs then swallows down the last of his beer, stalling to try to think of a good excuse to say no.

 

“Well, I _was_ just thinking about getting together for a couple of beers… I’m not actually asking you to marry me,” Jason laughs.

 

Danny huffs in response and quickly considers. Despite himself, Danny has had a good time tonight. He and Jason seem to have a lot in common, and God knows, the guy is not hard on the eyes. Besides, he _is_ trying to move on - maybe this could be the first step. So Danny gives a small nod of his head, “Okay, sure, why not,” he says, surprising himself almost as much as Jason.

 

\-----

 

They meet a few nights later to watch Monday Night Football and have a couple of beers. Just like the last time, Jason is smart, funny and amiable. Danny’s having a good time, but he’s having a good time like he would have with Chin or Kono. By half-time, Danny knows it’s not going to work. As much as he sort of wishes otherwise, there’s something missing; there’s no spark.

 

When the Packers finish annihilating the Vikings on tape-delay and they’re done settling their tab, Danny takes a deep breath and flicks his eyes up at Jason. “So, look… I had a good time tonight… I really did.”

 

“I can hear the ‘but’ coming a mile away with that one,” Jason smiles.

 

“Yeah… but…” Danny laughs a little. “You know, um… this is a little…”

 

“Awkward?” Jason finishes for him.

 

“Yeah,” Danny huffs. “So… I mostly have dated women my whole life…” he starts. He’s been rehearsing this in his head for the entire second half.

 

“Okaaay.”

 

“My last relationship was with a guy, but that was maybe sort of an anomaly – and maybe more about who he was, and less about me liking guys in general.”

 

Jason nods. “I think I see where you’re going with this. It’s not me, it’s you, right?” he says, self-deprecatingly.

 

“No, listen. I like you, Jason. You’re a good guy and you’re good company, but… I just don’t think I’m interested in dating right now. And to be honest, I’m not entirely sure I’ll ever really be interested in dating another man again.”

 

“Put you off that bad, did he?” he asks, half joking, but half serious, too.

 

“It was a painful break-up, yes,” Danny admits, nodding his head. He is suddenly distracted by the thought that he’s not entirely sure he ever wants to put himself out there like that again; to take another chance on love at all – with a man _or_ a woman. After Rachel and then Steve, Danny doesn’t think he could take any more heartbreak in his life.

 

“I get it, Danny. I can’t say I’m not disappointed. But, I get it.”

 

“Thanks. I’m sorry… but, thanks,” Danny says, still distracted.

 

“Look, if you change your mind, you know where to find me,” Jason says, getting off his barstool. “Or… if you just want some company to watch a game, give me a call. I can do this on a strictly friendly basis.”

 

“Yeah, that’s… great. That’d be great. I’ll call you,” Danny says, finding that he really means it.

 

Jason gives him a friendly slap on the back. “Take care, Danny. I hope I’ll be seeing you.”

 

And then he’s gone and Danny is left alone at the bar, absent-mindedly rubbing the scar on his forehead. It’s been just over a year since he and Steve had split up. Danny had marked the day by distracting himself in every imaginable way, including pulling a double shift and volunteering to do the booking in-take on a group of college students who thought that growing pot in their house was a good way to make money to pay tuition. Despite his best efforts, memories had tormented him all day, but surprisingly, it had been the good memories that plagued him, and not the memories from September 20, 2015.

 

It was annoying. It was annoying then and it’s annoying now, how he cannot just get over Steve already. Danny throws some bills down on the bar for a tip and stalks out, huffing in frustration that he just blew off a good-looking, funny, well-balanced guy who is completely at ease with who he is, because he’s still hung up on an emotionally stunted Neanderthal who will probably never be comfortable in his own skin.

 

\-----

 

“Hi, Sweetheart,” his mother’s voice greets him as he picks up the phone a few days later.

 

“Hi, Ma,” he replies, happy to hear her voice but simultaneously filled with dread. He’s always glad to talk to his mom – to have this lifeline back to home - but with the anniversary of Matty’s funeral looming, he knows she’ll want to talk about his brother. His mom finds it comforting to talk about her son, but Danny still hasn’t forgiven himself for what happened to Matty, so any conversation about him is still painfully difficult.

 

He manages to skirt the subject for several long minutes with stories about Grace, who he is always happy to talk about anyway. He thinks he’s maybe free and clear – that he’s distracted his mom from more painful topics - when she blindsides him.

 

“I’m so glad things are going so well with Grace, Sweetie, but, how are _you_ doing? _Really?”_ she asks suddenly - preempting another story about Grace - her mother’s intuition dialed up high.

 

“I’m good, Ma. Everything’s good,” he injects some false cheer into his voice, hoping she’ll miss the truth.

 

“You know, Danny, a mother knows when her son is lying to her,” she comes back with, shrewd as ever.

 

“I’m not lying!” Danny tries again. “Things are good, I swear!”

 

“Mn hmm,” she hums, letting him know she does not believe him one bit.

 

Danny sighs and rubs his eyes with his thumb and finger. “Seriously, Ma… I’m fine.”

 

“Are you seeing anyone?” she asks, too casually. She’s been obsessed with his love life – or lack thereof - for months.

 

Danny wonders if he should tell her about his ‘date’ with Jason, just to get her off his back a little. “No, I’m not seeing anyone,” he says instead, because he wants even less to get into a conversation about why there won’t be a second date with Jason.

 

“Have you talked to Steve?” she asks then, catching him off-guard.

 

Danny stiffens. “What? No, I haven’t. Why would I?” he asks defensively.

 

“I don’t know… I just thought maybe…”

 

“Ma, why would I be talking to Steve? You remember he cheated on me, right?” Danny snaps, slightly aggrieved.

 

There is pointed silence on the other end of the line.

 

“Look, I know you liked Steve. I get that,” Danny continues, part of him hurt by the implication of her questions. “But, you know, what he did was… that’s not something I can just pretend never happened. And honestly… why do you even think I should? Shouldn’t you be taking my side in this?” Danny asks, now sounding every bit as irritated as he feels.  

 

“I’m always on your side, Sweetie. And it’s not that I think you should, it’s just… I hate how sad you’ve been and if there were some way to…” she pauses and then starts again. “You know, Honey, it’s just that I learned a long time ago that sometimes forgiveness isn’t about pretending like something never happened, it’s more about acknowledging it did happen and agreeing to move on from it anyway.”

 

Danny considers for a moment and wonders about the story behind that. “Ma, listen,” he sighs, rubbing at the scar at his hairline. “It’s not that simple, okay? Steve has a lot of issues - his issue have issues, for Christ’s sake - and they’re not just gonna go away. Besides, it’s been a year, we’ve both moved on.”

 

“You said yourself that you haven’t – maybe he hasn’t either.”

 

“No, what I _said_ was that I’m not seeing anyone, not that I haven’t moved on. There’s a difference!”

 

“Is there?” she asks, and Danny can picture her eyebrow arched high on her forehead.

 

“Argh! Look, Ma, I gotta go – I have to get to work. I’ll call you in a couple days – you can talk to Grace. Bye, Ma,” he disconnects the call abruptly, feeling immediately guilty for cutting his mother off like that – he knows he’ll be calling to apologize to her later.

 

He grabs his wallet and keys from the counter and jogs out to the Camaro wanting nothing more than to burn that conversation from his memory, but despite his best efforts, something about what his mother said stays with him all day. And for many days after.

 

\-----

__

_ November 27, 2016 _

For the second year in a row, Steve doesn’t spend Thanksgiving with his Hawaiian ohana; instead, he and Mary go to Aunt Deb’s house in Las Vegas. She and Leonard are both declining in health, so traveling to them makes more sense and spares them the exhausting trip, and as this will likely be their last Thanksgiving, Steve wants to spend it with them.

 

It’s been bittersweet, but Steve can’t help but miss the more animated and raucous Thanksgivings of years past when the entire motley crew of friends came to his house. On the other hand, he also knows it’s the least he can do – to give that to Danny again this year.  

 

Steve is sitting contemplatively by the pool with a beer when Mary comes out after putting Joan to bed and packing for their return trip tomorrow.

 

“Hey Mary, you remember Dad’s dictionary?” Steve asks as she drops tiredly into the chair next to him.

 

“What, are you kidding? Of course I do! God, I _hated_ that thing,” Mary laughs. “Do you remember that time I faked being sick in junior high because that jerk Tommy Schmidt broke up with me and I didn’t want to see him, but then Dad came home from work in the middle of the morning because he forgot something and saw me outside surfing. He made me write ‘malingerer’ _200 times!_ ”

 

Steve laughs along with her.

 

“Malingerer: Someone who pretends illness, especially in order to shirk duty or work,” Mary recites from memory. “Man… it seemed like I was in his office every week with one word or another…”

 

Steve nods and takes a sip of his beer, a smile still spread across his face.

 

“What made you think of that?” she asks.

 

“I, uh, I came across it recently. I was flipping through it – just… made me think about a few things. You know, as much as I hated that as a punishment, there were a few words that really stayed with me… helped me through some rough times at the Academies.”

 

“I know,” Mary sighs. “I’m glad he’s not here to hear me say it, but there are a couple that stuck with me, too, and I have to admit, it maybe kept me on track a couple of times.”

 

“Yeah…” Steve nods his head in agreement. He pauses and drinks the last of his beer. “You know, he never assigned me the word ‘honor’,” he says eventually.

 

Mary looks at him quizzically. “Why would he?”

 

Steve shrugs. “Honor was a big deal to him.”

 

“Yeah, it was, but Steve… it’s not like you ever… _ever_ … behaved in a less than honorable way.”

 

Steve doesn’t respond - just stares at the beer bottle and picks at the label.

 

“Steve...?”

 

“Danny might not agree,” he finally says, setting the empty bottle on the table between them and turning to look at Mary.

 

“Steve. You have to stop beating yourself up over that.”

 

“Why? I really hurt him, Mare. I hurt him and I hurt Grace and I destroyed the best thing that I ever had. Kinda hard to stop regretting that.”

 

“I know… But that was one mistake. I’ll admit, it was a big one,” Steve gives her a rueful look, “but it _was_ just _one_ mistake. You’re a good person, Steve, and Dad never thought you weren’t an honorable person.”

 

“He would have - if he knew about me - you said so yourself.”

 

“I said he probably wouldn’t have approved of you being gay. I didn’t say he would think you were not honorable.”

 

“’Honesty, fairness or integrity of one’s beliefs and actions’. What’s the difference?”

 

“What?” Mary asks, looking confused.

 

“That’s the definition of honor – I looked it up… integrity of one’s actions…”

 

Mary stares at him and processes that for a few seconds. “Okay… what about the honesty part?”

 

“What about it?”

 

“You said that’s part of the definition… honesty of one’s beliefs and actions.”

 

“Yeah…?” Steve looks at her blankly, not understanding where she’s going with this.

 

“You keep fixating on _Dad’s_ code of honor, Steve… what about _yours?_ What about being honest about your own beliefs?”

 

Steve blinks at her a few times. “What?” he sounds a little startled.

 

“You heard me. Why does Dad’s definition of honor have to be the one you live by? Why can’t you live by your own?”

 

“I do.”

 

“Do you?”

 

“Yes, I do,” he replies firmly.

 

“Did _you_ think it was wrong for you to be in love with Danny Williams? To be in a relationship with him?”

 

Steve just stares at her as her words are swirling around his brain.

 

“Did you?” she demands.

 

“No,” he finally says, because it’s true. In all the time he was with Danny, he knew it felt right - he had no _personal_ shame or issues with it – his shame only came from the fact that he believed others thought it was wrong.

 

“Right. So why does Dad’s version of honor get to be the one that rules your life? Why not mine? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being gay. Or why not Mom’s, or Aunt Deb’s… but really, Steve, when it comes down to it, why not your own? Think about it,” she says as she stands up. “I’m beat and Joanie and I have a long drive tomorrow, so I’m going to bed. G’night, big brother,” she says as she walks into the house.

 

Steve just grunts his acknowledgment, too distracted by what she had said about honor to formulate actual words. His mind is reeling. God, could it be that easy? Is that the answer to the question that’s plagued him for all these months: how he could be an honorable man in his father’s eyes and not Danny’s? Is it just as simple as the fact that everyone has their _own_ sense of honor – their own moral code – and his father’s is just different from Danny’s. And his own.

 

Steve knows what his moral compass looks like, and while he might not always adhere to true north (sometimes the ends _do_ justify the means), he recognizes clearly when he strays too close to the line. Danny never stopped harassing him for his many shades of grey, but the truth was, Steve knew when he got too close to that line – _and_ when he stepped over it. And when he did, he _owned_ that; he has never deluded himself into believing he can do no wrong. In fact, Steve knows that his father would probably be horrified at some of the things Steve has done to achieve his ends, but that had never bothered him; he has shrugged that off easily. So why hasn’t he been able to shrug off what he thought his father’s perceptions of his sexuality would be? Why the hell should that particular aspect of his life still be in his father’s grip? Stupid! It was so stupid of him not have seen this sooner!    

 

He knew denying who he really is was wrong; he knew denying Danny in their relationship was wrong; he knew sleeping with Catherine was wrong; he knew not telling people what he had done was wrong. And it is suddenly crystal clear to Steve why he was always so damn… uncomfortable… all his life. He was never comfortable in his skin because he wasn’t wearing the right clothes. He had let himself be cloaked in someone else’s definition of morality and honor, and that discomfort had led him to make a terrible mistake.

 

 _Jesus,_ Mary is right. It is a stunningly simple realization; he does not need to live by anyone’s sense of honor or moral code but his own; not his father’s and not the military’s. He _knows_ who he is and he’s just fine with it… who he is, is exactly right.    

 

He sits by the pool for the rest of the night, looking at the stars and trying to find a fatal flaw in this line of reasoning, but he finds none. When the sun comes up, a new day begins, and he knows it’s cliché, but to Steve, it feels like the first day of the rest of his life.

 

\-----

 

_ December 20, 2016 _

The Chief is retiring at the end of the year and as one of his last official acts, he calls Dickhead into his office and fires him. Word spreads like wildfire and Danny smiles when he hears the news, but the smile quickly fades when the next thing he hears is that the Chief wants to see him.

 

He’s surprised - and happily so - when the Chief tells him he’s putting him back in Robbery. He can’t believe it when the man apologizes for what he refers to as ‘the charade’ of last year (dumping him down into Vice) and tells Danny he was afraid that if he didn’t separate the two of them, that Danny would have punched the guy eventually. He says that that would have been the end of Danny’ career, and Danny is too good a cop for him to let that happen.

 

Danny blinks at that.

 

The Chief keeps talking, telling Danny he’d been wanting to get rid of Dickhead for years – that he’d always known he was a troublemaker - but the asshole was too wily to do anything overt enough to warrant firing him. When nothing had materialized by the time the Chief’s retirement was looming, he decided to fire Dickhead anyway, as a last gift to the Department and a favor to his successor.

 

He also tells Danny that since HPD is planning to promote from within to fill the Chief’s vacancy, there will be some internal movement in HPD and he’s put in word for Danny to be moved to Homicide, says he should be thinking about trying to move up from there; he really hopes Robbery will be just a short-term gig until they can sort the rest out.

 

Danny blinks some more at that.

 

He walks out of the Chief’s office in a daze – he did not see that coming. When he tells Lombardi, his partner just smiles and says, “About time.”

 

Danny makes the move to Robbery immediately; the holidays always inspire creative thievery and the department is short staffed. He doesn’t even mind working Christmas Eve and Christmas day – Grace is gone to England with Rachel for two weeks and Danny had pretty much just planned to sulk the whole time anyway. Instead, he throws himself into his new position and enjoys the hell out of it; at least in Robbery, the perps are mildly smarter and so it takes a little more effort to work through the cases. But even more, he’s so excited at the possibility of bumping up to Homicide soon that he finds he is as jolly as Old St. Nick himself.

 

For the first time in a long time, Danny feels like his life is turning around and headed in the right direction – he finally feels like he’s moving on.

 

\-----

 

_ December 31, 2016, 8:03pm _

“Hi Joe,” Steve says as soon as the call connects.

 

“Well, hello Steve, it’s good to hear your voice,” Joe answers and Steve knows him well enough to be able to tell he’s smiling on the other end of the line.

 

“Listen – I wanted to talk to you… to tell you something before you hear it from someone else – I figure I owe you that much,” Steve says, strong and sure in his intention.

 

Steve can practically hear Joe tense up. “Okay.”

 

“I’d rather tell you in person, but since I have no idea where you are…”

 

“What is it you want to say, son,” Joe answers, making it clear that he’s not going to reveal where he is.

 

“I’m gay, Joe,” Steve says with no hesitation. “Well, actually, I guess I’m technically bisexual, but my leanings are definitely stronger toward men.”

 

There is a beat of silence. “I see,” Joe replies neutrally.

 

“Does it matter to you?” Steve queries, but out of curiosity and not concern.

 

Joe hesitates.

 

“I guess that’s my answer,” Steve says, a small amount of humor in his voice.

 

“No… Steve… it’s just… you just caught me off guard here. … It doesn’t matter to me. It doesn’t change the person you are… but…”

 

“But?”

 

“But, it’s a difficult path you’ve chosen if you plan to go… public… with that information,” Joe says, and Steve can hear the concern there.

 

“You know what, Joe? My entire life has been a difficult path because I stayed quiet about ‘that information’,” he says pointedly. “I’m done hiding. I am who I am and if people can’t accept that, then I don’t need them in my life – and that includes you.”

 

“Steve, I’m sorry to hear that you’ve had a hard time because of this. I had no idea. But, I just want you to know…”

 

“What?”

 

“I’m proud of you, son.”

 

Steve freezes for a moment and squeezes his eyes shut, overcome by unexpected emotion. “Thank you, sir,” he says, his voice a little raspy and he clears his throat. “What about my father?” he asks after a few seconds.

 

“Your father was proud of you, too, Steve.”

 

“Would he be now – if he knew this about me?” Steve presses.

 

“I honestly don’t know what your dad would have said. I guess no one can ever know that for sure. All I can tell you is that he recognized you were a human being with all the good and bad that comes with that, and he was still incredibly proud of the man he knew you to be.”

 

“Are you… are you saying he knew I was gay?” Steve asks, sounding uncertain.

 

“No, I’m pretty sure I would have heard about that if he did,” Joe says lightly. “I’m saying he knew that you were not a mirror image of him, but your own person, and he loved you fiercely for it.”

 

Steve doesn’t respond, just absorbs that information and tries to balance it with his own impressions of his father.

 

“Can I ask you something?” Joe asks eventually.

 

“Yes, Sir, go ahead,” Steve responds, standing straighter at attention, even though Joe can’t see him.

 

“Why are you doing this now? Why have you decided to go public with this?”

 

“I lost someone I cared about because I couldn’t bring myself to admit this about who I am to other people. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about honor and what it means since then, and I finally realized that conforming to other people’s ideas of honor doesn’t make me an honorable person. That it’s more honorable to admit to being the man I am, than to deny someone I love like some sort of Judas. I may have been satisfying people who aren’t comfortable with it – including my father – but it only made me miserable and, worse, it drove me to do something very dishonorable and hurt someone important to me. I guess I decided that it’s about time for me to live by my own definition of honor, and not anyone else’s.”

 

There is a moment of silence on the other end of the line. “Danny Williams,” Joe says eventually, seemingly apropos of nothing.

 

“What?” Steve asks, startled.

 

“You said you lost someone. I heard Danny left 5-0 a while back – it was him, wasn’t it?”

 

Steve clears his throat. “Yeah, it was Danny. It was the biggest mistake I’ve made in my life, Joe, and I’ll never regret anything more than the fact that I didn’t have enough courage or honor to be the man Danny knew I could be.”  

 

“Well, you’re that man now, apparently.”

 

“Too little, too late,” he answers, and he can hear the infinite sadness in his own voice.

 

“I’m sorry to hear that, son.”

 

“Not half as sorry as I am, Joe.”

 

“But if it’s over with Danny… are you sure you want to do this? Now? Is it really necessary?”

 

“This isn’t about Danny, Joe. It’s about me – and the man I am and the man I should have been. So, yes, I still have to do this – for myself – and no one else.”

 

Joe pauses again. “Alright, son. Then I wish you the best of luck. If there’s anything I can do, call me.”

 

“Thanks, Joe. I don’t think I’ll need any help. I’m good. For the first time in my adult life, I’m really good,” Steve answers with ease.

 

\-----

 

_ December 31, 2016, 11:45pm _

Danny sits in his back yard nursing a beer. Grace is still with Rachel - though thank God she’ll finally be home in 36 hours – he’s missed her so much. He watches the fireworks that he can occasionally catch a glimpse of through the trees, and listens to the booms. Another year gone…

 

Danny has never been one for New Year’s resolutions. He made them when he was young but they never stuck – he always forgot them within a few days – so he hasn’t bothered in years. Sitting alone in his yard this year though, it feels right to think about making one. He’s back on Robbery, the Chief encouraged him to throw his name in the hat for Homicide and even to take the lieutenants exam. It feels like the start of something new already and he feels like he should try for something more.

 

He rests his head back and thinks about what he needs to do in his life. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds to come up with the answer: he needs to finally move on. He’s been treading water the past 15 months – since everything happened with Steve – stuck in one place and feeling unable to move forward. He can’t seem to forgive Steve and just move past the awful events of September 2015, but he can’t seem to let him go, either. As much as he hates to admit it, Steve is still always there, in the back of his mind.

 

He finds himself again contemplating his mother’s words to him a couple of months ago; for all that she comes off as a little flakey, his mother is actually a fairly astute and perceptive woman. He’s always found her advice to be generally sound and he’s been thinking about what she said about forgiveness off and on for the last couple of months. Danny has been considering her suggestion that perhaps forgiveness doesn’t always require the remission of sins - as though it never happened - and slowly, the grip that his anger and righteousness have had on him has been loosening. He’s become more comfortable with the idea of just… agreeing to move forward.

 

Steve’s baggage is monumental, but that hadn’t stopped them from developing a solid friendship for five years before they started sleeping together; for the first time in over a year, Danny considers the idea that it _might just be possible_ for him and Steve to maybe get some of that friendship back.

 

A sudden cacophony in the sky tells him it must be midnight and Danny’s New Year’s resolution takes shape. He decides that he doesn’t need to _absolve_ Steve of his sins, but that he can live with the fact that the infidelity happened and start from there. He won’t try to pretend the transgression never occurred; instead, he’ll concede that something terrible happened, and then… leave what happened in the past, in the past. Danny takes a deep breath and resolves that the next time their paths cross, he’ll reach out to Steve a little bit and see if maybe it can bring them back around to something approximating friendship. He doesn’t know if that can happen, but he’s committed to trying. Danny can’t stop his hand from finding the scar on his forehead as he resolves to really move forward in 2017, one way or another; to stop being stuck in September 2015.

 

He hears one of the neighbors squealing and then a rapid burst of what must be hundreds and hundreds of firecrackers nearby and Danny smiles at the good omen.

 

\-----

 

_ January 1, 2017, 12:01am _

Steve logs in to his Facebook account and cuts and pastes the letter he has composed. As soon as he finishes, he hits ‘post’ without the slightest hesitation, closes his computer and goes up to bed feeling lighter than he ever has in 25 years.

 

\-----

 

_ January 2, 2017, 5:12pm _

“Have you looked at your Facebook lately?” Grace asks Danny innocently as they eat their dinner. She’s just returned home from England and is jetlagged and exhausted but has to go to school tomorrow, so Danny made an early dinner so she can go right to bed.

 

His Facebook? Danny rarely even remembered that he _has_ a Facebook page. Grace and Steve had ganged up on him a couple of years ago, teasing his Luddite tendencies, and so he had begrudgingly let Grace make a page for him. He had maybe 12 ‘friends’ which consisted of his sisters and nieces and nephews, and Grace, Steve and Mary, and Samantha Grover – though why Sam or Mary had wanted to friend him, he had no idea. He had been sort of interested for a few days – mostly to see what Grace was posting – but then people he hadn’t seen or heard from in decades started crawling out of the woodwork wanting to be friends and it gave Danny the creeps.   Instead of dealing with actually rejecting them, he had turned off all notifications (okay, he actually had Grace do that for him) and then promptly forgot about it.

 

“I thought Facebook was passé,” Danny comments. “That it’s all about Snapchat and Instagram now.”

 

Grace rolls her eyes and gives him her condescending ‘adults are so stupid’ look. “It is,” she answers.

 

“Then why should I look at it?”

 

Grace shrugs, pushing the last of her food around her plate as Danny squints at her suspiciously. “You just should… you know… to keep up with what’s going on,” she says nonchalantly, getting up and putting her plate in the sink and then giving him a kiss on the cheek. “I’m going to bed. Just… look at your Facebook, okay?”

 

“Yeah, sure,” Danny answers absently, then grabs her and pulls her in for a hug. “I’m really glad you’re home, Monkey,” he says, planting a kiss on the top of her head.

 

“Me too, Danno,” she smiles and then lets out an enormous yawn, before disappearing down the short hallway.

 

Danny gets up and cleans up from dinner, in a ridiculously happy mood now that Grace has returned. After he finishes, he grabs the Sports Illustrated on the table in the living room and reclines down onto the couch and starts reading, Facebook completely forgotten already.

 

\-----

 

  _January 22, 2017, 8:00pm_

“Oh! Danno!” Grace yells, popping back out of the front door at Rachel’s house. Danny had just dropped her off for the week and now she’s bounding down the stairs and running back over to him. “I completely forgot to ask you… What did you think?”

 

“What did I think about what?” Danny asks, stopping next to his open car door.

 

“About the Facebook post. Did you look at your Facebook like I told you to?”

 

“Oh, um, no, I didn’t. Sorry. I guess I forgot...” he answers sheepishly.

 

“Danno! You _have_ to look at it!” she says, clearly exasperated.

 

“Alright, alright, I will. As soon as I get home…”

 

She gives him another quick hug. “Love you, Danno.”

 

“Love you, too, monkey!” he smiles and squeezes her back.

 

She trots back to the house and Danny gets in his car and is about to pull to the door shut when he hears her call out again.

 

“Gmonkey2002!” she yells to him from the porch.

 

“What?” Danny yells back, confused.

 

“That’s your Facebook password,” she hollers and then disappears into the house.

 

How does she even remember that? There is no way Danny would have, though, so he’s glad she did. When he gets home, he considers not opening his Facebook, because he really is not interested, but then feels guilty for it. It dawns on him that maybe Grace herself posted something she wants him to see. He plugs in the password and opens his page. He sees that he has, literally, hundreds of unread notifications and a startling 88 friend requests. He clicks on the requests out of curiosity and is astounded to count among them a number of people who he hadn’t seen since grade school. How the hell do these people find him?

 

He scrolls through the news feed, mostly seeing posts from his nieces and nephews. He stops to read a few and they are mostly silly or inane, and Danny is thinking that he really does not get the appeal of all of this, when he is a little startled to see Steve’s name and photo appear. He sucks in a surprised breath and squints at the screen. Danny can count on one hand the number of times he’s seen Steve since everything happened, but each and every time he sees his name in the newspaper or catches sight of him on the evening news, it still causes his heart to pound a little harder. In the past it had annoyed the hell out of him, but with his New Year’s resolution firmly in place, he decides not to let it bother him.

 

He knew that Steve used Facebook to stay in touch with his friends and colleagues from the Navy and the SEALs, and to keep up with Mary and posts with pictures of Joan, but this particular item looks like a post that Steve had made himself, if Danny can interpret it correctly. He sees the title, ‘An Open Letter to My Friends and Colleagues,’ and he hesitates for a moment, his finger hovering above his keyboard. He’s curious – of course he is – but he also feels like he might be intruding on something personal to Steve. In the end, though, curiosity get the best of him and he clicks on the link.

 

He starts to scan the letter quickly, feeling too much like a voyeur peeking into someone else’s personal life, but he’s only a few sentences in before he stops and starts over, taking in each word carefully and making sure he understands what he’s reading.

 

_An Open Letter to My Friends and Colleagues:_

_First, I want to say that it has been my great pleasure and privilege to know all of you and to serve my country with many of you._

_But there sometimes comes a point in a person’s life when they feel a need to step back and ask themselves if they have really been the person that they want to be. Recent events in my life – events of my own making – have caused me to ask myself if I have been living an honorable life; if I can look myself in the mirror and ask if I truly think that I am an honorable person. I find that the only answer I can give in response is, No._

_Most of you who know me – maybe especially those who I served with - will no doubt be surprised to learn that while I have dated a lot of women in my life, my sexual preference is more strongly toward men. My last real relationship – and the only one that has ever really mattered to me – was with another man. But I destroyed that relationship because I didn’t have the_ _courage to do this, to tell those of you who knew me as ‘smooth dog’ that that moniker was a sham.  I am attracted to men, but I've been denying that fact and living a lie for most of my life, but today that ends._

_I do feel deep and abiding shame - not about the fact that I am bisexual - but about the fact that I never had the courage to say it publicly.  Worse though, my fears about what you might think led me to betray the trust of the man I love. I did something completely unforgivable because I was afraid to admit the truth about our relationship to others. I won’t go into details, except to say that we are no longer together and I am entirely to blame._

_I am to blame because for too long, I allowed others to define what honor means to me and who I should be. But I have come to realize that it was not honorable to pretend to be something I am not – or to pretend not to be something that I am. It was not honorable to be ashamed of loving someone. It was not honorable not to stand up and say it out loud. And it was not honorable not to speak up for others like me who were persecuted for it._

_It’s taken the loss of the person I love most in this world to help me realize that there is no honor in denying who I am. And so, on this first day of this New Year, I resolve to live only by my own definition of honor._

_I hope that all of you will agree that it shouldn’t matter who you love, it should only matter who you are. I am still the same person you have known and served with; I always was exactly that person, and always will be. For now, and for the first time, I’m as happy with myself, and as contented with my life, as I can be given the circumstances._

_I wish you all a Happy New Year and look forward to seeing many of you at the next SEAL reunion, or wherever our paths may cross in 2017._

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When he finishes, Danny reads it through again, and then again and again. After the fourth time, he sits back on the couch and just stares at his computer. After a long while, he sits forward again and clicks on the comments section and sees that many of them are filled with vitriol and hatred. But he’s relieved to see that even more of them are positive and express support for Steve and the courage he has shown in making his public declaration. He notices that Steve has not replied to any of the comments and wonders how to interpret that. He also muses that it has not broken in the local news, which is a bit of a surprise. It’s probably only a matter of time before it does; Danny wonders how Steve will deal with that.

 

Eventually, feeling entire unsettled, he closes the laptop and goes to get ready for bed. He moves completely on auto-pilot, his mind consumed with what he has just read, trying to wrap his head around the ramifications and what it all means… for him. Does it mean anything? It seems like it should, but he’s unsure how to feel about it. Eventually, he falls into bed and sleeps a fitful sleep.  

 

\-----

 

For days, Danny walks around in a kind of stupor, his mind completely distracted by thoughts of Steve and his letter. He somehow manages to do his job – barely - but outside of necessary interaction, he says virtually nothing. Lombardi starts looking at him funny and asking him – repeatedly - if he’s okay. Danny keeps telling him he’s fine, but he notices that his partner spends a lot of time watching him out of the corner of his eye.

 

Danny’s immediate reaction to Steve’s letter – but one that he’s reluctant to acknowledge – is hope. Part of him wants to think that maybe Steve has really changed – that he’s actually dropped some of the ton of baggage he’s been carrying. And maybe, if he has, along with Danny’s own determination to put the past behind them, they could possibly find… something… together again. He can’t deny that he’s still in love with Steve - his previous inability to move on made that pretty clear to him. He knows that the depth of the pain and sorrow that he’d felt at Steve’s betrayal was rooted in how deeply Danny loved Steve – he did then and he still does now.  

 

But as much as Danny wants to let the hope settle firmly in his chest, the idea of opening himself up to the risk of being hurt again is crippling. Because hand-in-hand with hope comes deep-seated fear. Danny is terrified of putting his heart out there again with Steve – afraid of ever repeating the pain he went through. He doesn’t think he could survive that again.

 

He wars with himself about what to do; several times a day he makes a decision and then changes his mind. One minute he’s ready to drive right to Steve’s house and talk to him – to ask him if he meant it. The next, he’s telling himself it’s not worth the risk. For five days, indecision plagues him; it’s exhausting and Danny starts to feel so taut with tension that he’s afraid he’s going to snap. At 4:00 on Friday, Lombardi finally throws a crumpled up paper at Danny’s head and tells him to get the hell out and to please have his head out of his ass by Monday.  

 

\-----

 

_ January 27, 2017, 5:52pm _

Danny had left HPD and driven to the Palace, parked in a far corner of the parking lot and waited. He couldn’t be sure Steve would be the last to leave, but it was usually a safe bet, and sure enough, he sees Chin, Kono and Lou all exit the building together, but Steve’s truck remains.

 

Now, Danny stands leaning against the door jamb of Steve office, arms crossed, a hard expression fixed on his face. His partner is so completely engrossed in looking at his computer screen that he hasn’t even registered Danny’s presence.

 

Danny rubs his scar unconsciously and then clear his throat. “So…” he says. It still comes out raspy and he clears his throat again.

 

Steve startles and jerks his head up, obviously shocked to see Danny standing there. “Danny…” he says, standing up quickly and swallowing hard.

 

Danny just stares at him for a minute, and Steve feels unsettled enough by the intensity of the gaze that he almost looks away.

 

“What… Why are you here?” Steve finally asks, sounding flustered in a way Steve never does.

 

“I’m not really sure, actually,” Danny answers, shifting his gaze to the floor in front of him.

 

It’s silent again for a moment and then Danny seems to shake himself and he looks back up. “I, uh, I saw your Facebook post.”

 

“Oh,” Steve says, not sure what Danny means by that; is he happy about it or angry? Steve can’t tell.

 

Danny doesn’t reply – he just watches Steve for a minute and then looks away, toward the bullpen.

 

“Danny,” Steve says tentatively, taking a step toward his partner.

 

Danny shakes his head minutely and Steve can see the emotions warring on his face.

 

“I didn’t… that wasn’t for you,” Steve says, hoping to placate Danny if he’s mad about it. “I mean… I didn’t think you ever even looked at Facebook,” he tries to say it lightly but he’s not sure it comes out that way.

 

“I don’t. Grace… Grace told me to look at it,” his eyes flick back to Steve.

 

“She did?” Steve asks, his own voice a raspy whisper now.

 

“Yeah,” Danny laughs, but there’s little humor in it. Steve can see him visibly force himself not to look away again. “So… did you mean it?” Danny asks, somehow sounding skeptical, defensive and hopeful all at once.

 

“Yeah, I meant it,” Steve answers, and he can’t help it, but a tiny sliver of hope wedges its way into his thoughts. “But it wasn’t for you. I wrote that for me, Danny… no one else.” Steve feels the strength of his words and stands a little taller.

 

“I…” Danny starts and stops, looking at Steve with a bewildered expression.

 

“Danny…” Steve says again, taking another small step forward.

 

Danny presses his back harder against the door frame, his eyes darting nervously between Steve and some indeterminate spot over his right shoulder.

 

Steve freezes. “Danny, please… You came here. That… that must mean something. It has to mean _something_ … right?” Steve asks softly, raising his hands up as though approaching a wild animal. “Please. Just… tell me…”

 

“Tell you what?” Danny asks, his eyes finally resting on Steve’s and staying there.

 

“Tell me what you want. Tell me what I can say… what I can do. … Whatever it is, I’ll do it. Just tell me how we take the first step,” Steve has crept closer – he’s just inches from Danny now.

 

Steve can see the emotions still warring on Danny’s face – hope and fear - so he stands completely still, unblinking and holding his breath, afraid that if he moves he may spook his skittish partner.

 

Danny stares at Steve for a moment. “Maybe…” he says quietly, ducking his head down again, pausing and unsure.

 

“Maybe…?” Steve gently prompts him.

 

“Maybe…” Danny brings his head up again and looks into Steve’s eyes. “Maybe you already have…”

 

“Danny,” Steve breathes out, his emotions on a rollercoaster as well: his own desperate hope that Danny may give him another chance; and debilitating fear that he will turn around and leave again.

 

Danny just looks at him, the trepidation he feels at possibly giving over his heart again visible on his face. “I don’t know if I can really… forgive… what you did.”

 

Steve’s heart sinks, despair setting in immediately. He nods in acknowledgement and looks down at the floor, his eyes welling instantly.

 

“But, uh, maybe…”

 

Steve’s head snaps back up and he doesn’t even care that a single tear tracks down his face.

 

“Maybe I can… maybe I can just… go forward? Leave it in the past?”

 

Steve looks at him with eyes wide. “O… okay…” he says, his voice barely more than a whisper. He is still standing utterly still.

 

“Maybe we can…” Danny pauses and clears his throat again, trying to get rid of the rasp that doesn’t seem to go away. “…start over?”

 

“Okay… yeah… start over…” Steve eyes are open wide and he is breathing in short, shallow breaths, still terrified that Danny will change his mind.

 

And then Danny is looking at him and Steve can _see_ the instant that Danny’s resolve kicks in; he can see Danny facing his worst fear and having the courage to accept the risk anyway. He seems to solidify right there in front of Steve, standing straighter and looking stronger. It causes a small smile to twitch at Steve’s lips but he quickly suppresses it, afraid it might spook his partner.

 

Danny stares intensely at him for another minute, and then Steve sees him blink and give an almost imperceptibly nod of his head.

 

Steve swallows and nods too, and then leans in very slowly - eyes locked with Danny’s - his intentions clear, giving Danny plenty of time to pull away.

 

But Danny doesn’t pull away, instead he closes the last few inches to brush his lips ever so lightly against his partner’s; the briefest touch, the softest promise.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! I know that a lot of you commented that you couldn't see how these boys could ever be fixed. I really hope that you feel like it worked okay and was realistic - that's been my primary goal with this fic from the start.
> 
> Anyway... one last chapter to come. It will sort of get these guys more fully back on track with each other and then also included will be a happy little epilogue that was one of the very first things I wrote for this fic... It's a short piece that I went back to and reread for myself over and over when I would get too sad about how much I was making these boys hurt! : ) 
> 
> Thanks so much for your patience with these last 2 chapters - the next one shouldn't take nearly as long.


	13. ...the love that you gave that we made...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leaps of faith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah… in my mind, this last chapter was going to be short and light… I guess it’s pretty light (by comparison) but somehow it’s come in at just over 13k+. I’m really not kidding when I say ‘somebody stop me!’
> 
> And… Hmmm… I think I told one or two of you in comments that this fic wouldn’t have any explicit sex, besides the little bit in the first chapter. But, yeah… then this happened… so please note the rating change. 
> 
> And of course, much thanks and gratitude to my awesome beta, KippyVee.

 

 

Breathing new life into a relationship that’s been dead for nearly a year and half is a tricky thing, fraught with potential missteps and uncertainty. In the end, though, Danny and Steve both realize that all it takes, are certain leaps of faith…

 

_ January 27, 2017, 7:06pm _

“So, um… how do we do this?” Steve asks, once they get settled with their beers.

 

They are sitting at a bar neither of them has ever been to because… neutral territory. It’s big and caters to tourists, but it’s early enough that it’s not too loud and they’re able to get a booth in a far corner, away from the noise of the small crowd that’s hovered closer to the bar.

 

“I have no idea,” Danny admits. “But I guess maybe we need to start by agreeing that we have to be honest with each other. I mean, before, I wasn’t entirely honest with you about how much things bothered me, and you weren’t entirely honest with me about how fucked in the head you really were,” Danny can’t stop himself from getting that little dig in, but Steve just grins at him.

 

“Okay. Agreed. Honesty. Very important. What else?” Steve asks.

 

Danny eyes Steve for a moment. “You’re different,” he observes and takes a sip of his beer.

 

“I hope so,” Steve replies easily. “There were some things about me that I didn’t much like before.”

 

“And now?”

Steve shrugs. “Now I’m… better. I’m okay with who I am. I like who I am, even.”

 

“What changed?” Danny asks, curious.

 

“Well, I did something reprehensible and hurt the most important person in my life… so… you know, it was probably time for me to take stock,” Steve replies frankly, but with confidence.

 

Danny stares at Steve discerningly but doesn’t say anything.

 

“It was something you said, actually… that night…”

 

“Yeah?” Danny cocks his head curiously.

 

“You told me you thought I was mixed up about the meaning of honor.”

 

Danny looks at Steve and nods slowly.

 

“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking… about honor and what it means.”

 

“And?”

 

“And it took a while, but I finally realized that I had been letting other people define what honor should be for me, instead of living by my own definition.”

 

Danny nods again. That was more or less what he was trying to get at that night he and Steve ended their relationship.

 

Steve laughs a little. “Believe it or not, Mary was the one who helped me finally see the light.”

“Mary?” Danny says, his eyebrows raised high.

 

Steve nods. “Anyway, once I figured that out… I don’t know…” he shrugs. “…the rest seems easy.”

 

“Is it?” Danny asks, not exactly suspicious, but slightly dubious.   “Is it really just that easy?”

 

“Yeah, Danny… it really is.” Steve says earnestly. “I don’t know… once that clicked into place, everything else just seems… obvious.”

 

Danny finally smiles. “I’m really glad, babe. You deserve that.”

 

Steve’s heart does a little flip at the term of endearment. “You know… Danny… I’ll always regret what I did – _always_ – more than anything. But… part of me doesn’t think I would have ever gotten to this point without that wake-up call…” Steve glances nervously at Danny, hoping he understands what he’s trying to say.

 

“I get that, babe… I do. For the record, I’m glad you got here, too.”

 

“Thanks,” Steve answers softly and they both sit quietly for a few moments.

 

“What about you? Why, uh… why did you come to the office today?” Steve finally asks, curiosity getting the better of him.

 

Danny shrugs. “Because I’m still in love with you,” he says after a beat and then looks up through his eyelashes to get Steve’s reaction.

 

Steve sucks in an audible breath. “I love you too, Danny,” he replies quickly.

 

Danny gives a fractional nod of his head and then continues. “Honestly though, until just recently, I didn’t think this could ever happen.”

 

“What changed your mind?”

 

“Something my mom said…”

 

“Clara?” Steve asks, his lips quirking up at the corners. Steve and Clara always did have a secret little thing between them - a thing where they talked about Danny and schemed behind his back.

 

“Yeah… she said sometimes forgiveness isn’t about trying to pretend something never happened, but that it can just be about acknowledging it did, admitting that it hurt and deciding to move past it anyway… I realized she was right,” Danny says, staring into his beer for a few seconds and then looking back up at Steve. “I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever get to the point where I can say that what you did was something I can accept. But I think I can say that, you did it, it sucked, I’m mad as hell at you for doing it - and might always be - but I… I still want to be with you.”

 

Steve doesn’t say anything for a long time, just stares at Danny, who holds his gaze. After a minute, Steve shifts his gaze out the window, deep in thought.

 

“What?” Danny finally asks.

 

“I don’t know…” Steve says, looking back.

 

“No, Steve, seriously… what? Did we not just establish that honesty is the most important thing? If we want any shot at making this work again, then you cannot close up and not talk to me.”

 

Steve stares at Danny a minute longer and Danny starts to feel apprehensive about what it is that Steve isn’t saying.

 

Then Steve seems to make a decision and he nods his head to himself. “Okay, Danny, here it is. I get what you’re saying about maybe not being able to forgive me – I guess I can’t really blame you for that. But… and I can’t believe I’m saying this, because all I’ve wanted for the last year and a half was another chance with you, but…” he hesitates and his reluctance to continue is obvious.

 

“But?” Danny asks, feeling anxious, the fragility of what they are doing suddenly hitting home with him.

 

“But… I can’t help feeling that if you think you’re always going to be mad at me for what I did, then I’m not sure we can really make this work. If every time we have a disagreement or a fight, you throw that back at me because you’re mad, I can’t live like that. I know I screwed up – badly - I get that and you’ll get no argument from me here. So I can’t really defend myself against that, you know? If it’s something that’s going to come up again and again between us, it completely distorts the power balance in our relationship.”

 

Danny stares at Steve, torn between the disheartening realization that Steve is right and anything they might try is predestined to fail, and finding humor in what Steve just said. He’d rather not think about the former, so he tackles the latter first. “Distorts the power balance in our relationship…?” Danny says, forcing a small smirk onto his face.

 

“I think you know what I’m saying, Danny,” Steve says, ignoring Danny’s attempts at levity. “I love you… and I will always love you, but I feel like this thing would be doomed from the start.” The words he’s just said make Steve so miserable that he can’t even look at Danny and he closes his eyes and rests his head on the back of the booth. “I’m sorry,” he adds, barely more than a whisper.

 

Danny doesn’t say anything as Steve’s words tumble in his head. He sees the truth of what Steve has said and doesn’t have a ready answer. He starts to feel skittish and claustrophobic and desperately needs some fresh air, so he stands up abruptly. Steve opens his eyes with a look of panic when he sees Danny standing.

 

“I’m just going to the john,” Danny blurts as he reads the look of dread on Steve’s face. “I’ll… I’ll be right back,” and he makes for the door before Steve can respond. Steve watches him go, unsure what to think.

 

Danny doesn’t go to the bathroom; instead he heads for the exit and walks down to the beach. When he gets to the water, he stops and bends over with his hands on his knees, taking slow, deep breaths. After he calms down a little, he stands back up and shoves his hands in his pockets, and considers what Steve said, trying to figure out where they go from here – if anywhere. Steve’s absolutely right. The anger that he can’t quite let go of is the kind of thing that will fester inside and find its way out when they are fighting. And he’s also right that there’s no way Steve could defend against that and it would probably inevitably mean the end of anything they tried to rebuild.

 

Danny’s mind spins, trying to come up with a possible solution. He can’t just say he forgives Steve because he honestly isn’t there yet; he’s not going to lie to himself and Steve about that. He watches the waves and tries to figure out a way past this dilemma that would enable the two of them to try again. A slightly ridiculous idea comes to Danny, but since he’s not been able to come up with anything else, he figures it might be their only shot. Maybe, Danny thinks, maybe… It will take a leap of faith on both of their parts, but he’d be willing if Steve is.

 

He turns around, planning to go back to the bar and pitch his idea but stops abruptly when he sees Steve walking toward him from the bar.

 

“Hey,” Steve says, squinting at Danny. “I thought you were going to the head.”

 

Danny can still read Steve well enough to know he’s tense, but he’s doing a good job of not showing it. “Uh, no… I, I guess I needed some air. Sorry. I was just coming back,” Danny explains.

 

“Not a very good start to that honesty thing,” Steve says with a sad laugh.  

 

“No, I know… you’re right. I’m sorry about that. I just needed to clear my head. Listen… I’ve got an idea.”

 

“Yeah?” Steve says, perking up.

 

“So, okay… how about this. This… what we have here now,” he says as he waves his hand back and forth between the two of them. “Let’s call this starting an entirely new relationship. We’re both different people now. You’ve changed – I can see that. I think I’ve changed a little, too. Whatever happened between us before is off the table and not open for discussion in our new relationship because it’s not relevant.”

 

“So… what? We just don’t discuss it?”

 

“No, we don’t discuss it. What happened in that relationship has no bearing on what happens in this relationship. They’re two entirely different and separate things. One has nothing to do with the other.”

 

“Do you really think that can work?” Steve asks, sounding hopeful.

 

“I think it’s worth a shot,” Danny answers. “Because otherwise, I think you’re right and this is over before we even start.”

 

Steve is quiet and thinks for a minute then looks up and nods his head. “Okay, Danny, I think I can work with that,” Steve says, smiling brightly and reaching his hand out to seal the deal.

 

Danny stares down at Steve’s hand like it offends him and Steve’s smile starts to fade, but then a flicker of confusion, followed by flash of understanding crosses his face as Danny steps forward and pulls him down into a kiss. It is nothing like the fragile, tentative kiss they shared in Steve’s office, as each of them gives himself over to it.

 

When Danny breaks the kiss a moment later, he rests his forehead against Steve’s collarbone. “Christ, I’ve missed that,” he says quietly.

 

“Yeah, me to,” Steve says, then nudges Danny’s head back for more languid kissing.

 

Danny sighs into it but then breaks the kiss and looks up startled at the realization that he just kissed Steve in full view of a couple dozen people nearby on the beach and Steve neither flinched nor pulled away. A slow grin spreads across Danny’s face. “Whaddaya say we get outta here.”

 

“Where, uh… where do you want to go?”

 

“My place?” Danny says quickly, because he knows he’s not quite ready to face Steve’s bedroom yet, new relationship or not.

 

Steve nods and they both make for the parking lot.

 

\-----

 

Twenty-five minutes later, Steve’s truck is parked alongside Danny’s Camaro in his driveway and Steve’s cock is in Danny mouth in the small hall inside the front door. Driving separately to Danny’s house after the kiss on the beach had both of them horny and desperate by the time they managed to get inside. Danny had pushed Steve against the wall and all but attacked his mouth before Steve had cunningly reversed their positions, grinding his arousal against Danny’s hip while slotting a leg between Danny’s for him to do the same.

 

They’re both bordering on frantic, and it’s only a few moments before Danny drops to his knees. He had already scrambled to unbutton Steve’s pants, so he drags them down with him as he goes, Steve’s fully-erect cock springing up to bounce in front of Danny’s face.

 

Steve immediately leans one hand against the wall behind Danny and then drops the other onto Danny’s head, reflexively grasping his hair. Danny grunts; Steve’s grabbed him probably rougher than he realizes, but it’s not so rough that Danny feels the need to stop what he’s doing and ask Steve to let go.

 

Steve’s already breathing hard; it’s been soooo long and Steve hasn’t had sex with another person since that fateful morning 16 months ago so he’s ready to blow pretty quickly. It doesn’t help that Danny is making slightly desperate sounds as he works Steve’s cock at a punishing pace, one hand pumping up and down near the base while his tongue adds extra friction with every bob of his head.

 

Steve closes his eyes and leans his forehead against his hand resting against the wall for a few seconds and then pushes back and looks down. When Danny happens to flick his eyes upward at exactly the same time and he catches sight of the blue intensity, Steve’s body shudders and he gasps.

 

“ _Danny – I’m gonna come!_ ” he chokes out and abruptly pulls out of Danny’s mouth as he ejaculates. The first shot hits Danny in the cheek - causing him to squeeze his eyes shut and jerk his head a little (though not much because Steve still has a firm grip in his hair); the second hits him at the corner of the mouth, and the third Steve finally has the presence of mind to direct away from Danny’s face and so it hits him on the side of his neck.

 

“ _Shit…_ ” Steve slurs as the last ripples of his orgasm course through him.

 

Danny opens his eyes in time to see a dribble of semen ooze from Steve’s cock and slide down and around the crown. There’s come dripping down Danny’s face, but he ignores it and instead leans forward to lick the pearly white drops off of Steve’s cock and then gently pulls it into his mouth again – just the head – and sucks very lightly. Steve hisses and a shudder wracks through his body as a final, unexpected shot of come spurts weakly into Danny’s mouth.

 

“Danny,” he groans, dropping his head between his shoulders and watching as Danny lightly mouths at his cock. After half a minute, Steve eases backward a bit, gently pulling his cock out of Danny’s mouth and then drops to his knees in front of his partner.

 

“Sorry… I’m sorry,” Steve mumbles as he clumsily wipes at the come on Danny’s face.

 

“ _Shut up!_ ” Danny pants and grabs Steve by the back of the neck and pulls Steve’s mouth to his own. His other hand is trying to free his own rock-hard cock and Steve’s hands immediately join it, making the escape from the thin wool of the trousers much quicker. Steve takes Danny in hand and starts pumping his fist and Danny’s breath stutters in Steve’s mouth.

 

Danny groans long and deep and keeps one hand on the back of Steve’s neck, the other clutched tightly in his shirt, holding him close and shoving his tongue deep into Steve’s mouth. He feels like he wants to devour Steve alive – he’s missed this so much. His mind is completely blank except for the vague thoughts of _stevestevesteve_ and _fuckyesfuckyesfuckyes_ that are circling there.

 

Steve’s got one hand braced against the wall again, and he’s doing his best to kiss Danny senseless as his other hand is working Danny’s weeping cock like a piston. He can feel Danny starting to tense and hears small whimpering sounds that Danny’s never made before, and Jesus if his own cock doesn’t twitch again. Danny suddenly stills and another groan escapes as Steve feels the warm release cover his hand. Danny’s body jerks a little and he grunts, and when his partner stops shuddering, Steve lets go of his cock and wraps both arms tightly around Danny’s body and pulls him in close, mouths still working in concert.

 

Eventually Danny sags a little and Steve loosens his hold and they both topple over into a sort of controlled fall until they’re sprawled on the floor, clothes half-on and half-off, limbs tangled, still panting hard.

 

They lie there slightly dazed while their heartrates come down and their breathing slows. One of Danny’s arms is pinned at an uncomfortable angle and after a moment he reluctantly moves so that he can extricate himself a little bit from Steve’s embrace and then he rolls onto his back.   “Fuck…” he says, but definitely in a good way, and a ghost of a tired smile flickers across Steve’s face. “Jesus, I missed you so much,” Danny says, turning his head to look at his partner.

 

Steve rolls onto his side, one hand propping his head up, the other he lays on Danny’s chest, and then he bends in to kiss him some more. “I guess we’re over that awkward sex thing,” he says when he eventually pulls back.

 

Danny erupts into laughter and Steve joins him and somehow they manage to get themselves tucked into their clothes and situated upright again, sitting side by side against the wall.

 

“You came on my face,” Danny says without heat, while he tries to wipe it away. It’s mostly dried now though, so he gives up pretty quickly.

 

“Sorry… I didn’t mean to do that. It kinda snuck up on me… sorry,” he says again, ducking his head sheepishly.

 

“Stop apologizing, it was really fucking hot,” Danny answers, his voice a low growl, and then thunks his head back against the wall.

 

Steve turns and gives him a goofy grin. “You liked that?”

 

“Kinda sticky… messy…” he says, with his eyes closed now, but he’s wearing his own sloppy smile.

 

Steve leans in and swipes his tongue across Danny’s face, licking up the mostly dry come from his cheekbone and near his mouth, then moving on to his neck. Danny shivers as Steve’s tongue licks wetly along his neck, lapping the last of the residue away. When he’s gotten it all, he lifts his mouth back up to Danny’s and slips his tongue between Danny’s lips. Danny groans softly and pulls Steve’s tongue into his mouth, sucking lightly.

 

When Steve finally pulls back, Danny looks at how debauched his partner appears; face flushed, mouth red and puffy, spit gleaming on his lips. “Yeah, really fucking hot,” Danny reiterates and Steve grins before he gets up, then reaches down to pull Danny up as well.

 

 

_ January 28, 2017, 5:30am _

Steve’s internal alarm wakes him abruptly at the same time as it does every morning. His body immediately itches to get up and get moving, but then he registers that Danny’s limbs are wrapped around him in a way that moving would no doubt mean waking him. So Steve lies still, wondering if he’s still plagued by insomnia and not at all interested in upsetting his partner’s sleep. Instead, he stares at Danny, meditating on the last 12 hours.

 

He had been so shocked when Danny had shown up at his office the day before that he had felt completely off his game. He never in a million years expected that Danny might suggest that they could possibly still have a future together, so when Danny had let him kiss him that first time, Steve thought his heart might pound out of his chest. His heartrate picks up a little again as he anticipates his new future.

 

He watches Danny sleep, and makes a promise to himself never to hurt Danny so badly again. He knows without a doubt that he is done with sneaking around and hiding his relationship and who he is, so Steve knows that this ‘new’ relationship with Danny is going to mean some changes for him and his life. It was one thing to abstractly admit who he is; it’s another thing entirely to be in an open and public relationship with another man. Steve is surprised to find that that thought does not incite panic in him – it doesn’t make him nervous at all, in fact. He burrows deeper into Danny while he savors that for a minute.

 

In contrast to his static body, Steve’s mind starts moving fast, working through everything that this new relationship will require. Among other things, he probably should have another conversation with the Governor. Steve had met with him after the New Year, handing him a printed copy of his Facebook post because he knew that if the general public got wind of it, things could get ugly, and he didn’t want the Governor to be caught unawares.

 

Denning had read the page and then looked back up at Steve, one eyebrow raised. “Williams?” he asked.

 

Steve nodded. He probably shouldn’t have been surprised that people were able to figure that out. Though he’s pretty sure it was Danny’s abrupt and unexplained departure from 5-0 rather than anything overt they ever did that tipped people off.

 

Steve also gave Denning the opportunity to accept Steve’s resignation, right then and there, if he wanted it, or later, if things got political. The Governor had scoffed and reminded Steve that he’d been the one to sign Hawai’i’s civil partnership bill into law and he was proud of that – and was even more pleased about the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage – so there was no way he would ever accept any resignation from Steve based on who he might choose as a partner. Steve’s unorthodox approach to police work, on the other hand… he had added in his tireless attempts to get 5-0 under control.

 

Steve yawns and looks around Danny’s room, really taking it in for the first time. Not much of what he sees in the bedroom is familiar; the furniture and bedding are different than his last house. There are the ubiquitous pictures of Grace, of course, some he’s seen before, but more taken since he saw them last. Mostly, it’s Danny’s clothes, poking visibly out of the small closet that has no door, that he recognizes; lots of blue shirts and dark pants and patent leather shoes. It’s like he knows the man who occupies this space, but sort of doesn’t, and when he looks back at Danny, an idea takes shape in his mind.

 

He spends the next couple of hours making plans in his head: deciding what he can do on his own and what he’ll need help with; making mental lists of supplies he’ll need; thinking about the phone calls he’ll need to make. He’ll probably need to talk to the bank, and if he gets going soon enough, he might even be able to get that ball rolling this morning, before they close at noon. He’s so caught up in his thoughts that he doesn’t immediately notice Danny stir next to him.

 

“Hey,” Danny murmurs.

 

“Hey,” Steve smiles, mind shifting gears. His hand automatically reaches for Danny’s hip.

 

“Been awake long?”

 

“A little while,” Steve answers.

 

Danny lifts his head and looks at the clock on the table. “It’s 8:00, so… what…? You’ve been staring at me for two-and-a-half hours?” Danny asks sleepily, and then pulls in a huge yawn.

 

Steve smiles at how well Danny knows him. “I didn’t want to wake you up.”

 

Danny rolls his eyes and then rolls onto his back and stretches.

 

“Listen, I’ve got some things I need to do today,” Steve starts. “So, do you want me to make some breakfast before I go?”

 

Danny turns to look at him and Steve can see him searching for problems or tension.

 

“Everything’s fine, Danny,” he reassures. “I really do just have stuff I need to take care of at the house.”

 

“Okay,” Danny answers, seeming to accept that.

 

“So, is Grace back tomorrow night?” Steve asks cautiously.

 

“Yeah – Sunday night – still the same schedule.”

 

“Are you going to tell her?”

 

“Um…” Danny pauses and looks uncertainly at Steve. “You know, I think… I think I need to wait… just for a little while. I don’t… I don’t wanna tell her and then have something go wrong…” Danny says, looking like he’s holding his breath and waiting for Steve’s reaction.

 

This time it’s Steve’s turn to look searchingly at his partner, trying to parse the meaning of that. He gets it… Grace is Danny’s world, and their break-up had hurt her, too. They’ve only been back together for exactly 12 hours, so Steve can understand Danny wanting to wait a little bit – to be sure this thing between them will stick – before telling Grace anything. And honestly, Steve’s a little nervous about how Grace will react to the news, given that the last time they saw each other she ran from him crying; Steve’s not entirely sure Grace will welcome their reconciliation after how Steve had hurt her dad.

 

“Yeah, okay, Danny,” Steve says agreeably.

 

“You’re not mad?”

 

“Nah… I get it,” Steve shrugs. “You need to be sure. I want you to be sure, too. I don’t want to risk hurting her again any more than you do.”

 

Danny leans back in and kisses Steve. “Thanks, babe,” he murmurs, and nuzzles sleepily at Steve’s neck.

 

Danny’s hot breath on his neck makes Steve’ cock jump and he has a sudden and very vivid vision of pinning Danny up against the shower wall and kissing him senseless again. “You know what? Breakfast can wait,” Steve says, his breath hitching already and pulling Danny out of bed. “Come on, let’s go take a shower.”

 

\-----

 

_ February 3, 2017, 12:30pm _

“So, Danny, when do you want to come back to 5-0?” Steve asks around a mouthful of greasy cheeseburger.

 

Danny freezes for an instant - stops chewing the food in his own mouth for a second as panic seizes – then begins to chew again. He waves his hand in the general direction of his mouth, signally to his partner that he’s not nearly as uncouth as Steve and will not stoop to talking with his mouth full of food, and then chews deliberately – and possibly more slowly – while his mind races to think of how to respond. Steve is smiling and seems oblivious to the turmoil going on in Danny’s mind, so he must have covered his reaction well enough.

 

“I mean, you must be bored out of your mind in Robbery and there’s no reason for you not to come back now, so…” Steve stops to shove what looks to Danny like a quarter of the burger into his mouth.

 

Danny sets down his sandwich, wipes his hands on a napkin and then takes a drink of his ice tea.

 

He and Steve have met up for lunch at a diner far from either 5-0 or HPD. They’ve sort of been sneaking around to meet all week because they’ve both decided to let things percolate between them a little while longer before they tell the team. It’s been kind of nice… it’s like they’re going on dates and the anticipation is pleasant.  

 

The morning after they reconciled (after they fucked again in the shower) they had breakfast and talked some more, but then Steve left to take care of what he needed to do and Danny returned to his normal routine. But the fact that Grace is at Danny’s this week means they haven’t had any replay of that first night, so it does feel like they are taking things slowly and a little like they _are_ in a new relationship.

 

Since they can’t see each other at night, they’ve met for lunch a few times this week and for a quick beer after work twice when Steve could get away early enough; Grace doesn’t get home from cheer practice until 6:30 anyway. Danny likes the mundanity of this – it’s starting to feel like things are returning to some sort of normal – but more important, it feels like they are rebuilding their _friendship_. Danny had missed that as much as anything – probably more than the sex, if he’s honest - and so these brief meet-ups where they can just talk and laugh and there’s no real sexual tension, feel like they are building a strong foundation for the rest of their new relationship.

 

But Danny knew this question would be coming eventually and he’s been dreading it, because he knows Steve is not going to like the answer.

 

“Look, Steve…” Danny starts, darting his already apologetic eyes up to Steve’s, and he sees Steve immediately register what he’s going to say next. Danny pauses and smiles up at the waitress when she appears out of nowhere to refill his iced tea, and when he looks back, Steve is rushing to chew and swallow his food so he can counter what he knows Danny is going to say.

 

Danny opens his mouth to finish his thought but Steve starts shaking his head and jumps in before he can say anything. “Danny, you have to come back to 5-0!”

 

Danny is shaking his head, too, now. “Steve… no… I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

 

Steve leans forward over the table, his eyes gone wide with determination. “Of course it’s a good idea! You _belong_ at 5-0… you’re part of our team. We _all_ want you back – we always have.”

 

“Listen to me. I’ve got a place at HPD, Steve. I’m moving up to Homicide next month, taking the lieutenants exam…”

 

“Don’t you _want_ to come back?” Steve cuts him off, sounding incredulous.

 

Danny looks at him for a moment – he feels guilty for the confusion and disappointment he sees on Steve’s face, but overpowering that is the memory of the panic he felt when he knew he had to leave 5-0 and didn’t know if he could get back on at HPD. He doesn’t ever want to face that again – and he’s pretty sure that HPD wouldn’t take him on a _third_ time if he quit _again_ to go back to 5-0. No… there’s no way Danny can afford to risk that.

 

“Look, Steve. I’m not going to lie and tell you that I don’t wish I could come back to 5-0…”

 

“You _can,_ ” Steve cuts in emphatically.

 

“No, I _can’t,_ ” Danny says, equally emphatic.

 

“Danny… whaddaya mean? _Of course_ you can. What’s the problem?” Steve is flailing.

“The problem is… If we’re going to do this thing again, I think… I think I need some separation… I think Lou was right the first time – that maybe work and relationships aren’t the best mix.”

 

“You don’t really trust me…” Steve says, leaning back, his voice flat.

 

Danny closes his eyes against that for a couple of seconds and opens them to see Steve sad but resigned.

 

“I actually _do_ trust you. I really do think this can work between us or I wouldn’t be with you here now,” Danny affirms and Steve relaxes a little bit at that. “But, I need… I need a safety net in case my life goes to shit again. Please, Steve… Please. I know we weren’t going to talk about this – that we’re supposed to leave the past in the past… but, I need you to understand.” Danny leans over the table and drops his voice, not wanting everyone to hear their conversation. “The worst thing about what happened between us was being terrified that I wasn’t going to be able to support my daughter. If HPD hadn’t taken me on, how the hell was I going to be able to take care of Grace? I can’t do that again, Steve. I just can’t take that chance. I’m sorry. I really am. If it weren’t for Grace, I would probably come back in a heartbeat, and maybe… maybe when she’s grown and off to college or something... But, for now, I just… I can’t. I’m sorry.”

 

Steve looks guilty-ridden again and then runs a hand down his face and sits staring at Danny for a moment. “Yeah, okay, Danny,” he finally says. “I get it… I do. I wish I could try to change your mind, but, when you put it like that, I guess I don’t want to.”

 

“I’m sorry, Steve… I really am.”

 

Steve sits up straighter. “Don’t be. I understand. But as soon as Gracie leaves for college, you’re coming back in. And don’t think I won’t pull the Governor as my trump card again,” Steve concedes and picks up his burger to take another bite.

 

“Oh, you’re going to _force_ me to be your partner again, huh?” Danny laughs, relieved that Steve has let this go so easily, and thinking that there may actually be a tiny upside to Grace finally leaving home one day.

 

“If I have to,” he answers, his words barely intelligible around the handful of French fries that he had just shoved into his mouth.

 

Danny stares at him with an exaggerated look of disgust. “You really are an animal, you know that?” he says, more than happy to move Steve away from the previous tender topic. “Can you not wait until you actually chew and swallow to try to converse with the human race?”

 

Steve just grins as he chews, looking at Danny with decided affection through half-lidded eyes. Danny huffs a laugh and shakes his head.

 

\-----

 

_ March 3, 2017, 6:40pm _

Steve is standing alone in Danny’s kitchen, nervously tapping his fingers on the counter. When he hears the front door open, he hastily stands up straight and wipes his sweaty palms on his cargo pants. Steve hears the light footsteps make their way to the kitchen and then stop abruptly; he sees Grace’s eyes open slightly wider at her surprise when she registers his presence, but her original composure is back in an instant.

 

“Where’s Danno?” Grace asks calmly, as though seeing Steve in her kitchen for the first time in a year and a half is nothing unusual.

 

Steve is struck that this is not a little girl standing in front of him, but a young woman. Her poise and maturity are obvious and he registers a thrum of melancholy that he’s missed her metamorphosis. Steve’s also a little disappointed that she didn’t call him ‘Uncle Steve’, but he knows it’s not a given and it’ll take time for him to earn that back – if he ever does.

 

“Hey, Gracie. I know your dad told you that he and I are… starting to see each other again, and I, uh, I thought that maybe you and I should talk.”  

 

She stares at him for several long seconds and Steve finds it unsettling that he cannot read her thoughts like he used to be able. “Is this the shovel talk?” she finally asks.

 

“Um… I don’t know what that is,” Steve says, the space between his eyes creasing deep with confusion.

 

Grace rolls her eyes a little. (Yep, she’s definitely not the little girl he knew before). “It’s where I tell you that if you hurt Danno again, I will beat you to death with a shovel,” she says casually. “It’s a Buffy thing…” she adds when she sees the slightly alarmed look on Steve’s face.

 

He stares at her, dumbfounded for a couple of seconds, and then shakes his head a little. He has no idea what that reference is to, but he gets the big picture of what she’s saying. “Um… yeah, sort of, I think… except it’s me telling you that I promise you I’m not going to hurt him again.”

 

Grace shrugs. “Same thing, I guess.”

 

Steve feels completely flustered. He had a whole speech planned, but now he has no idea what to say and he just stares at her, finding himself… speechless.

 

Grace looks around the room and cranes her neck to look down the small hallway. “So, where’s Danno?” she asks again, looking back at Steve.

 

“Oh… he, uh, got hung up at work. He should be home soon.”

 

“Oh,” she says, apparently unperturbed. “Are you staying for pizza? We make it on the grill on Friday nights,” she says, setting her backpack down and kicking off her shoes.

 

“Um, sure… if that’s okay with you.”

 

Grace shrugs again and then walks over to the refrigerator and starts rooting around. “Yeah, it’s okay with me. But just so you know, Danno still won’t let any ham or pineapple adulterate his pizza.”

 

Steve grins. “I hope not. He wouldn’t be the Danno we know and love if he did.”

 

Grace turns back and gives Steve a penetrating look, one arm still holding the refrigerator open. “You do love him, right?”

 

Steve feels himself flush and he swallows hard. “Yeah, I love your dad more than anything in the world, Grace. I know that I did a terrible thing to him – _and to you_ – and I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. And I promise you – _I promise_ \- I’ll never hurt him like that again,” he rushes the words out, feeling relief that he finally gets to say them.

 

Her eyes search Steve’s face for any sign of deceptiveness, her gaze is so fierce that Steve feels disconcerted and he almost wants to turn away; he’s faced down armed men intent on killing him and he’s been less bothered than he is in the face of Grace’s intense scrutiny.

 

“Make sure you don’t,” she finally says, and then turns back to the refrigerator.

 

Steve lets out a good-sized sigh of relief.

 

\-----

 

Later that night, after Grace has retreated to her room, he and Danny are sitting in the back yard.

 

“So, Danny. Your daughter threatened to beat me to death with a shovel today,” Steve says, arching an eyebrow at his partner.

 

Danny looks over and barks a laugh. “Seriously? She gave you the shovel talk?”

 

Steve makes a frustrated noise. “What is that? The shovel talk? I don’t know what that is! And who the hell is _Buffy?_ ” Steve demands, irritated at his ignorance.

 

Danny flaps his hand at him, still laughing. “Buffy is a Vampire Slayer – it’s a cult thing with the kids. Grace makes me watch it with her sometimes. The shovel talk is… you know, when the father says to the boyfriend – I’ve got a gun and a shovel and no one will ever find your body if you hurt my little girl. But Buffy put a little different spin on it…”

 

“Scary… it was scary, Danny,” Steve makes a show of visibly shivering. “What happened to the sweet, innocent little girl I used to know?”

 

“She grew up,” Danny sighs. “Believe me, I have tried every imaginable thing to stop that from happening, but she refuses to comply.”

 

“I missed a lot…”

 

Danny can hear the regret in his words and he doesn’t want to let what has been a really good night turn gloomy, so he reaches over and twines his fingers through Steve’s. “Trust me, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to experience the joys of life with a teenaged girl. If that doesn’t chase you away for good, then nothing will.”

 

“I can handle it,” Steve says confidently… cocky, even.

 

“Oooohhh – you think so, huh?” Danny laughs knowingly. “You think your ordinary SEAL-slash-ninja skills are going help you here, don’t you? Well let me tell you… Everything you learned at the Academies and in BUD/S and whatever other super-secret training you’ve had, will be _nothing_ in the face of a 15-year-old girl’s hormones. Good luck my friend!”

 

“Bring it on, Danno,” Steve grins at the challenge, happy to face anything if it means being part of their lives again.

 

\-----

 

_ March 6, 2017, 10:00am _

“Hey, Danny, howzit?” Danny hears Chin’s voice and he spins around to see him walk into the room.

 

“No… _no… come on!_ I’m back on Homicide less than a week – this is the first real case I’ve had and you’re going to _poach it_ from me?” Danny whines when he sees the entire 5-0 team stroll into his crime scene. Steve is the last to enter the room and he has a shit-eating grin on his face when he does.

 

Kono practically sprints over to Danny and throws her arms around him.

 

Steve had shown up at his door early this morning to let him know that the cat was out of the bag with the team – that he had set his phone on the tech table late the night before when they were tying up some loose ends on the case they had just closed and they had all seen one of Danny’s texts light up the screen.

 

_< Going to bed, see you tomorrow?>_

 

 

“Steve…?” Kono had asked, confused.

 

“What the _hell?_ ” Lou had queried, looking up at Steve, gobsmacked.

 

And when he glanced at Chin, the man had just raised a questioning eyebrow at him.

 

Steve quickly picked up his phone and slipped in back in his pocket, blushing fiercely. “So, yeah…” he started, rubbing nervously at the back of his neck. “Um… Danny and I… we’ve been seeing each other a little. Seeing if maybe we can work things out.”

 

Steve had then been subject to an interrogation the likes of which was never seen outside of the rendition room.

 

Danny had been startled when he opened his door early that morning to find Steve standing there looking jittery and guilty. He peered at the conciliatory pink box Steve was holding. “What did you do?” he asked suspiciously.

 

“I’m sorry, Danny…” Steve started.

 

Danny’s stomach dropped as the horrifying possibilities started flashing through his mind.

 

“No… no, it’s nothing like that!” Steve spit out quickly, and Danny calmed considerably. “My phone was on the tech table last night when you sent that text. The team knows about us,” Steve cringed a little and waited for Danny’s verbal assault.

 

“Oh… is that all?” he asked, grabbing the box from Steve’s hands.

 

“You’re not mad?” Steve asked cautiously.

 

Danny shrugged. “Nah… I figured we’d tell them soon anyway,” he grinned as he opened the box.

 

“So all it takes is a box of malasadas…?”

 

“And this is news to you?” Danny asked as he popped one in his mouth.

 

Steve rolled his eyes. “Okay, I’m late, so, I gotta go…” he said affectionately as he watched Danny scarf down three more of the tiny treats in rapid succession.

 

“Thanks!” he heard Danny yell after him as he got into his truck.

 

Danny wasn’t nearly as pleased when he saw them walk onto his crime scene, but it was hard to stay mad in the presence of Kono’s dimpled smile and the happy handshakes all around.

 

“So, Detective, what’ve we got?” Steve asks, smiling and loose, after they’ve all said their hellos.

 

Danny runs the scene for them; it doesn’t take long since he’d only just started taking a look around when 5-0 had shown up. When he finishes briefing his former teammates, he starts looking resignedly around for his partner so they can clear out and go find something else to do.

 

“Hang on, Detective,” Steve says, putting a hand on Danny’s arm as he had started walking away. He has a smirk on his face and Danny quirks a brow at him. “I think we could use a couple extra hands on this case. Why don’t you and your partner talk to the neighbors – see if they heard anything. We’ll meet back at 5-0 later to coordinate the investigation.”

 

Danny cocks his head and considers. He knows what Steve is doing; he can’t get his way and get Danny to come back to 5-0 so he’s dragging him in the back door. It’s not unheard of; 5-0 does sometimes ask for HPD’s assistance on complex cases, and this one looks like it could be just that.   Part of him salivates in anticipation at the idea of working with his old team – of working this complex case - but part of him worries about the potential pitfalls: they may not gel anymore; Steve may be too pushy; they might butt heads and undo any progress they’ve made in this still-tenuous new relationship.

 

Danny looks at the rest of the 5-0 team, all of whom seem to be holding their breath, and then at Steve, who looks to be vibrating with nervous energy, awaiting Danny’s response. It will take another leap of faith, Danny knows, to trust that he and Steve could negotiate the possible hazards of working together again and come out on the other side with their relationship intact.

 

“Sure…” Danny says slowly, nodding his head. “We can help out.”

 

Steve’s face breaks into a blazing grin.

 

\-----

 

Six months and countless crime scenes later, the Chief throws up his hands in surrender and appoints Danny as ‘Special Liaison’ to 5-0, making it official that any time the two departments need to work together, Danny is the point for communication between the two, and while he remains a part of HPD, he is assigned to assist 5-0 whenever they need extra help.

 

It’s funny how 5-0 suddenly finds itself in need of HPD’s assistance more than ever before.

 

\-----

 

_ March 24, 2017 _

Turns out though, no matter how smooth some things go, there are still always going to be a few hiccups along the way.

 

When they first started seeing each other again, Danny stated outright that he wasn’t ready to go back to Steve’s house any time soon – the scene of the crime and all that. Steve offered to sell the house, but Danny balked at that. He wasn’t trying to punish Steve, he just needed a little time to work up to that.

 

But it’s been almost two months now and Danny knows it’s time to get over himself already, so one day, when Danny’s working another case with 5-0 and he finds himself hunched over the tech table with Steve, he casually suggests that he grab some takeout and some beer and bring it by Steve’s house that night.

 

Steve looks up at him and blinks, and after a beat says, “Yeah, that sounds good,” and then they both turn back to the task at hand.

 

\-----

 

_ March 24, 2017, 7:30pm _

Danny hesitates for a second and is about to knock on the door when he changes his mind and just grabs the doorknob and pushes the door open instead. He takes a step inside and freezes. It is barely recognizable as the house he fled all those months ago. The living room has been painted blue, there are new tile floors, and all the furniture that is visible from where he stands is different – not a single piece remains from when the two of them lived together. Danny is staring in shock when he hears Steve walk in the back door.

 

“Hey,” Steve says, pushing his chin up in greeting, obviously trying not to look nervous when he clearly is. “I didn’t know you were here.”

 

“Uh, yeah… I let myself in,” Danny says, sounding a little dazed. “What, uh… what…?”

 

“Oh, uh, yeah… I made a few changes,” Steve answers, still not sounding quite as nonchalant as he’d like.

 

“I can see that,” Danny says, still looking around. “It’s nice… I like it,” Danny says, nodding his head as his gaze returns to Steve.

 

“Yeah?” Steve asks, clearly pleased. “Well, uh, put that stuff down, I want to show you something else,” he says, and grabs the bag of food and the beer from Danny, depositing it on a nearby table and then taking Danny’s wrist and pulling him toward the stairs.

 

Danny probably would have been more hesitant if he wasn’t so stunned, but he follows along without saying a word.

 

When they get to the top of the stairs, it seems a little different, but Danny can’t quite put his finger on how until Steve opens the door to the master bedroom. Danny blinks in surprise when he sees that the room is completely changed: walls have been moved; the closet and bathroom have been reoriented; the new size and shape mean the furniture (also all new) is placed completely differently in the room. It is not at all recognizable as the bedroom he once lived in.

 

He turns to give Steve a stunned look. “When…?”

 

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but, I started in January,” Steve says, his eyes sparkling with delight.

 

“In January…”

 

“Yeah… you know, I thought maybe the place could use a few changes.”

 

A few changes… There is not a single thing in this room that would ever remind Danny of that day that altered their lives. Danny stares for a minute, utterly speechless at how much consideration Steve must have put into this – not to mention expense. When he finally looks over at Steve he can see that he is clearly waiting with anticipation for Danny’s full reaction. Danny pulls Steve into a loose embrace and tucks his face into Steve’s neck. “Thanks, babe,” he says, the words coming out rough and catching in his throat.

 

“I took a chance… is it… better?” Steve asks quietly.

 

“It’s perfect.”

 

\-----

__

_ March 25, 2017, 10:30pm _

The sex was the easy part – that had never been one of their issues. But after a few weeks, Danny started thinking that maybe something wasn’t quite right there, and after nearly 2 months, Danny knows something is definitely wrong.

 

“Okay, stop!” Danny says, just after Steve’s mouth had wrapped itself wickedly around Danny’s cock and he had pushed lube and a condom into Danny’s hand.

 

Steve stops and looks up, Danny’s cock slipping from his mouth. “Everything alright?”

 

“No, everything is not alright,” Danny extricates himself from Steve’s tangle of limbs and sits up.

 

Steve follows, a perplexed and slightly concerned look on his face. “What’s going on, Danny?”

 

Danny huffs a frustrated breath. “Are you ever going to just fuck me again?” he asks bluntly.

 

Steve looks at him, clearly alarmed. “Wh… what do you mean?”

“I mean… since we have been back together, we have had sex in many ways… you have blown me, I’ve blown you, you’ve fisted me off and vice versa, on one memorable occasion you kissed me naked in the shower until I saw stars and came all across your naked abs – which made for a very appealing picture, I might add – and I have fucked you on numerous occasions. But you have not once – _not one single time_ – fucked me.”

 

“Uh… really?” Steve asks in a way that tells Danny that Steve is perfectly aware; Danny arches his eyebrows.

 

“What the hell is going on?”

 

“Nothing… Danny, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just… you know… doing whatever…” Steve says, his eyes not quite meeting Danny’s.

 

Danny tenses and shifts away from Steve a little. “Do you… do you not want to do that with me anymore?” Danny asks, feeling suddenly insecure. His mind helpfully supplies that this is it… this is when the shoe drops… he should have known that things couldn’t have really turned out okay…

 

“NO!” Steve says quickly and loudly, interrupting Danny’s inner worrying. “No, I _do_ …”

 

Danny looks at him skeptically for a few seconds. “Okay then,” he says, leaning back down and spreading his legs, putting himself on display for Steve. “Have at it.”

 

But then he sees Steve hesitate again and quickly sits back up.

 

“Seriously, Steve… what’s going on?” he asks, feeling self-conscious now and covering his naked body with the sheet.

 

Steve looks away for a moment and then seems to steel himself before looking back to Danny. “What you said… you said that thing, when we were talking…”

 

Danny stares at Steve uncomprehendingly. “I’m sorry, am I supposed to have any idea what you’re talking about? When I said what thing? When?”

 

Steve cringes a little. “That night…” Steve says and when he doesn’t continue right away, Danny rolls his eyes and makes a twirling motion with his hand, indicating to Steve to keep going.

 

“…In your motel room,” he reluctantly adds.

 

“Oh…” Danny says after a beat and screws up his face a little. “When I said… which thing?”

 

Steve bends his knees up and rests his forehead on them for a few seconds. When he looks up, Danny can see his disquiet. Steve starts to say something and then hesitates, before he takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “I asked you how long you had been watching Catherine and me, and you said…” Steve stops.

 

Danny blinks as comprehension sets in. “I said ‘long enough to know you fuck her like you fuck me’,” Danny says, dropping his head down in something like regret. “Shit,” he whispers quietly, mostly to himself.

 

“Yeah,” Steve answers, equally quietly.

 

“So… what? You don’t wanna…?” ‘fuck me anymore’, is what Danny is thinking.

 

“Remind you of that,” is what Steve says.

 

Danny looks at Steve in relief. _Oh!_ _That_ he can work with… _that_ has a solution. “That I can work with…” Danny tells Steve.

 

Steve peers over at his partner. “What are you suggesting?”

 

“I’m suggesting that you fuck me already,” he says and Steve furrows his brow in confusion.

 

“Look, I want you to fuck me, okay? And I don’t wanna be thinking about Catherine when you’re doing that any more than you do. So all we gotta do is just… switch it up a little for a while. There are a million ways to do this, babe. Just don’t… fuck me like _that_ , you know?”

 

A slow smile spreads across Steve’s face… “Yeah, okay… I think maybe I have some ideas…”

 

Danny smiles, too. “Yeah? I think maybe I’ve got some ideas, too…”

 

Steve doesn’t hesitate again as he pounces on Danny and they get to work putting some of those ideas into practice.

 

And Steve does have some ideas. For the next several weeks, when Danny’s not fucking him, he fucks Danny in every way imaginable: Steve fucks Danny on their knees; on Danny’s stomach; with Danny’s legs wrapped around him standing up in the shower; standing up with Danny’s chest pressed up against the wall inside the front door; over the dining room table; with Danny in his lap facing forward and then with Danny in his lap facing backward. And when he runs out of his own ideas, he does some internet searching and comes up with some truly imaginative ones… even one crazy thing called ‘the pretzel’ that looks impossible but ends up being more mind-blowing than he ever could have imagined. Neither of them has anything to complain about and no bad memories seem to spring to mind. Then one night, four or five months later, after they’ve both had a long day and are tired, Steve takes a leap of faith and just fucks Danny, in the bed, face to face, and there’s a lot of kissing, and it’s nice, and it’s intimate, and neither one of them thinks about Catherine.

 

\-----

 

_ May 30, 2017 _

“I want you to move back into the house.”

 

“No,” Danny says automatically and without pause.

 

Steve gives him an annoyed look. “Why not?”

 

Danny looks at Steve like the moron he is. “Are you kidding me? We only just got back together a couple months ago and you want to rush back into living together?”

 

“It’s been four months, Danny, and yes, I do. We both know we’re committed to each other, right? There’s no reason…”

 

“Stop!” Danny interrupts him, impatient and frustrated because he does not want to have this argument. “Please… just don’t do this. I am nowhere near ready to do that again. The last time we lived together it was a fucking nightmare to extricate our lives from each other’s. I’m not rushing into that again.”

 

“I thought we weren’t talking about our past relationship – it has nothing to do with this one…” Steve says smugly.

 

Danny gives him the stink-eye. “Okay, then… I am not moving in with you because we’ve only been in a relationship for four months – that’s much too soon to take the next step,” Danny answers, equally smug.

 

Steve looks vexed for a few seconds, but then his face brightens. “Marry me,” he says.

 

Danny does a double-take. “Are you kidding me? I _just_ told you I’m not ready to take the next step of moving in with you - why would you think I would say yes to marrying you?” he practically yells, gesturing wildly.

 

“I think you don’t want to move in because you’re unsure of my intentions…”

 

“Your intentions…?” Danny squints at him with his mouth open.

 

“Yes. My intentions. It is my intension, Daniel Williams, to spend the rest of my life with you so I want to marry you… that is my intension,” Steve says, wrapping Danny in his arms and kissing him soundly.

 

Danny pulls back and looks at Steve. “You’re really serious, aren’t you?”

 

Steve lets go of Danny and takes a step back. “Yes, Danny, I’m really serious. I _know_ I want to be with you for the rest of our lives. I’ve known that for years, even if I used to be afraid to admit it. I’m not bothered by that anymore and I want to declare it – publically – for the whole world to know. I want to be with you, Danny. I want to marry you.”

 

Danny stares wide-eyed at him and even Steve seems a little astonished by his speech, but in a pleased way.

 

“Look, Steve,” Danny says, rubbing his eyes with his forefinger and thumb. “I’m not really sure I wanna do that again,” he says as he looks hesitantly back up at Steve.

 

“What? You mean get married?” Steve says with surprise.

 

“Yeah… get married,” he answers, flicking his eyes away from Steve’s and then back.

 

“What, like… ever?” Concern has crept into Steve’s voice.

 

“I don’t know! Maybe…? After Rachel… I just… I told myself never again.”

 

“Oh, come on, Danny, that was a long time ago. We’re committed to each other, we know that, right? Why wouldn’t you want to get married?” Steve argues.

 

“Look, Steve. This isn’t something that you can just talk me into – it’s not like ‘where are we going to have dinner tonight?’ and you want a burger and I want pizza. I just… I can’t…” Danny eyes are full of apology.

 

A dark cloud passes over Steve’s face. “So… what? Just like that? You won’t even consider it some day? We can’t even have that as a goal down the road?” Steve asks in frustration, but there is hurt there, too.

 

Danny closes his eyes to think about it for a minute. He isn’t oblivious to the role-reversal they’re experiencing here; before, Danny wanted commitment (though not necessarily marriage) and Steve had balked. Now, when Steve is ready to commit himself fully, he finds that he can’t give Steve the answer he wants.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says, remorse in his voice. “Maybe… someday. I mean… I _do_ know I want to be with you, too. But I gotta be honest and tell you that I am nowhere near being able to say yes to that right now.”

 

Steve studies Danny’s face for a minute; he can see hints of the old Danny – the one always waiting for the worst to happen. He had made strides after the parking garage, Steve knew, but he also knew that their break-up probably would have undermined any progress Danny made in that area. His face softens as he watches Danny worry and all he wants to do is put his partner at ease.

 

“Okay, Danny. How about this,” Steve says conciliatorily. “I know I want to marry you someday, so I’ll keep asking and anytime you want to change your answer to yes, I’ll be ready to hear it.”

 

\-----

 

_ June, 2017 _

“Marry me,” Steve demands out of the blue as they are in high-speed pursuit of a murder suspect in the Camaro (because some things never change).

 

Danny looks at him like he’s gone crazy. “Are you _insane?!_ We are chasing _a murderer!_ ” Danny yells, bracing himself against the dashboard and door as Steve careens around a corner.

 

Steve keeps glancing back and forth between Danny and the suspect’s car as they barrel down the road. “So is that a ‘yes’?”

 

“ _NO!_ That is not a yes! _And keep your eyes on the road!_ ”

 

\-----

 

_ July, 2017 _

In January that year, Steve had confirmed his reservation to attend the annual SEAL reunion in July. He found himself actually eager to meet with his cohort after revealing the truth about himself. But near the end of July, a 15-year-old girl disappeared from a beach party and washed up dead a couple days later with clear evidence of murder. Danny was a wreck; the girl was someone from Grace’s school – though not a close friend - and at 15, Grace herself had been venturing out to an occasional beach party now and then. Steve could not picture himself leaving town with the case still open, but even less, leaving Danny when he was so close to the edge, so he cancelled his reservations and stayed to work the case. It crossed his mind that people might think he was afraid to face them, but he didn’t care; nothing was more important than taking care of his own. They caught the 18-year-old perpetrator a week later, but it took another month before Danny was back to anything resembling normal.

 

\-----

 

_ September, 2017 _

“Hey, Danno,” Steve says one day when things finally feel comfortable again, causing Danny to look up from the newspaper he is reading at Steve’s dining room table. “Will you marry me?”

 

Danny pauses, shakes his head, and goes back to reading the paper.

 

Steve shrugs and goes back to the sports page in front of him.

 

\-----

__

_ November 23, 2017, 11:02pm _

Steve sighs happily as he hands Grace the last dish to dry from the first Thanksgiving they’ve celebrated together in 3 years. Sadly, Aunt Deb and Leonard had both passed earlier that year, but Mary and Joan were there, as well as the usual cast of characters. Steve wraps his elbow around Grace’s neck and gives her an affectionate kiss on the top of the head. She’s gotten so tall… she’ll pass Danny up any day now. Danny pretends to be annoyed, but Steve knows he’s secretly pleased that she’s growing tall and strong.

 

His arm is still wrapped around Grace when Danny walks into the kitchen with a couple of straggler glasses. “So, Danno… whaddaya say we get married?” Steve asks, then looks down at Grace for approval.

 

Grace squeals with excitement, a throwback to her younger days that they rarely hear anymore. “ _YES!_ ” she yells.

 

“ _NO,_ ” Danny answers, glaring at Steve.

 

“Awww!” Grace complains, clearly disappointed.

 

“And _not fair,_ McGarrett – using my daughter as a pawn in your game!” Danny says, pointing accusingly at Steve.

 

“All’s fair in love and war, Danno,” Steve answers with an impish grin.

 

“Yeah, Danno!” Grace chimes in, and Steve bends to kiss her conspiratorially on the head again.

 

Danny makes a quick retreat.

 

\-----

 

_ January 1, 2018 _

“How about we start the new year by getting married?”

 

“How about we don’t.”

 

\-----

__

_ February, 2018 _

A year after they reconciled, Danny finally acquiesces and moves back into Steve’s house.

 

They move all of Danny’s stuff on a Saturday in February and the rest of the team is there to help – something of a mirror image of that day a little over two years ago now. Like that day, they throw together a barbeque afterward to feed their friends, but this time, there’s only happiness and laughter.

 

Later that night, after everyone has left and Grace has gone to bed, Steve and Danny sit in their chairs by the water, sweaty and exhausted, and trying to find the energy to go inside. At one point, Steve gets up to go grab a couple more beers from the cooler and when he returns, he sets them on the small table and then goes down on one knee in front of Danny. “Will you marry me?” he asks, hopeful that this time Danny will say yes.

 

Danny shakes his head minutely. “Steve… I’m sorry, I really am, but… I’m not there yet.”

 

Steve nods, leans in and kisses Danny and then sits back up in his chair. “It was worth a shot,” he says with no resentment. “Welcome home, Danno,” he adds and clinks his bottle with Danny’s.

 

Danny smiles. “Thanks, babe. It’s good to _be_ home.”

 

After a few minutes more of quiet it hits Steve like a freight train that that was the first time that Danny had said _‘yet’_. He can’t stop himself from grinning.

 

\-----

__

_ May, 2018 _

“How about now?”

 

“Nope.”

 

\-----

__

_ July 28, 2018 _

This year when the SEAL reunion announcement had come out in January, Steve had asked Danny if he was interested in going along. Danny was a little surprised – and then realizes how pleased he was and told him yes, if Steve really wanted him to go along, he’d like to. No pressing cases come up for either of them, so they find themselves on a red-eye flight to Seattle, both of them silently contemplating what the weekend ahead might hold.

 

Danny thinks that this weekend could be something of a defining moment. Coming out publicly in Hawai’i wasn’t too hard, because when it came down to it, it’s a small, isolated place with a tight-knit population. Steve and Danny had been fairly well insulated from any kind of broad-based negative reaction to their relationship when the press finally started sniffing around the story. It got some sensational play in the media for a couple days but then the uproar quickly disappeared when the two of them, and the team and the Governor ignored it completely.

 

Truthfully, it was probably more difficult for Danny at HPD because any large group of people is bound to have some homophobes within its ranks. But the Chief had made it clear that he would not tolerate harassment, and most of the cops just shook Danny’s hand in support.  

 

But there was no one from the difficult days of Steve’s military past in Hawai’i, so Danny hasn’t seen how Steve might react when faced with hostility from someone close to him. He had read the comments on Steve’s Facebook post, but Steve never had, insisting he didn’t care so he couldn’t be bothered. At first, Danny thought that Steve had been too afraid to face the vitriol he knew he’d find there, but never once since they’ve been back together has Danny seen Steve shown any signs of being uncomfortable with coming out or reluctant about making their relationship public. So Danny is curious to see how Steve will respond in a room full of SEALs, and he’s also ready to stand by his side in support if things get ugly.

 

“So, you know that some of these guys aren’t going to be too nice about us, right?” Steve asks Danny as though reading his thoughts as they reach cruising altitude.

 

“Yeah, I think I get that,” Danny answers, scrutinizing Steve’s face. He reads a tiny bit of tension there, but he thinks it has more to do with his concern for Danny, than his own nervousness about facing his former military friends in person for the first time.

 

Danny’s own nerves are less about facing hostile SEALs and more about whether Steve’s former teammates will deem him worthy of Steve; this feels a little like going home to meet the parents – if the parents had ridiculously high expectations about the physical capabilities of their child’s partner. Truth be told, Danny’s been working out doubly hard the last couple months, hoping not to humiliate himself on the 10K that’s been planned for the next morning. Steve had told him (with a smirk) that he didn’t need to join the run - that a lot of the ‘wives’ opted out of the physical part of the weekend. Danny had growled and told Steve to bring it on - there was no way that Danny was going to let that gauntlet be thrown and not meet the challenge.

 

“If you want to leave any time, that’s really okay. I wouldn’t blame you.”

 

“Steve, I’ll be fine. I’m not afraid of a couple jarheads,” Danny huffs.

 

“They’re SEALs, Danny, not Marines,” Steve says, falling into their familiar back-and-forth with a fond smile on his face.

 

“You say potato…” Danny says and leans in to kiss Steve, equally fondly.

 

Steve pushes into the kiss, pulls back and then pushes in again, slipping his tongue into Danny’s mouth for just a second. Danny gives a barely-audible groan and when Steve pulls back again, he leans forward, chasing Steve’s mouth.  

 

“Oh, hey, Danno?” Steve says quietly and Danny opens his eyes to look at Steve. “Will you marry me?”

 

Danny smiles and then pushes the button to recline in his seat. “No,” he says as he closes his eyes.

 

Steve sits back and reclines his chair, too, smiling and happy, without any visible trace of apprehension about the upcoming weekend.

 

\-----

****

** Epilogue **

 

_ July 29, 2018, 9:30pm _

Danny looks around the room and he can practically _taste_ the testosterone that hovers in the air. The banquet is over and the crowd had emptied into the massive hotel bar, Steve and Danny along with them.

 

All day and evening, a ripple of energy had run through every room they entered and heads had turned to watch them. Former SEALs had approached them, some welcoming, some hostile, some unsure what to make of them and only gathering their courage to broach the subject after several drinks. Danny had started off observing Steve carefully, and vice versa, each concerned about how the other would fare. But it didn’t take long at all before they both stopped worrying; Danny couldn’t really care less about what these guys thought, and all signs indicated that Steve couldn’t either.

 

At first Steve stuck close by him, not wanting to abandon Danny in a crowd of strangers – some of them outright antagonistic - but soon enough, Danny told him to stop worrying and shooed him away when a couple guys came to drag Steve across the room to find someone else.

 

A couple of hostiles had swooped in when Danny was alone, sensing their target was vulnerable, but Danny held his own just fine.

 

“You’re the guy that that faggot McGarrett’s fucking, huh?” one particularly dickish guy – his nametag said ‘Sikovic’ – sneered after pushing his way into Danny’s space and trying to intimidate him.

 

“No… actually, I’m the guy that’s usually fucking McGarrett…” Danny replied casually, then he put a hand to the side of his mouth and stage-whispered, “He’s a _bottom._ ”

 

“Fucking faggots!” the drunk asshole had yelled and staggered off, grabbing his friend and pointing back at Danny. Danny laughed, but tensed for an altercation, and he was a little relieved when the friend gave his buddy a hard look, shook his head and dragged him away.

 

“Don’t worry about him – he’s always been a dick,” a voice startles Danny over his left shoulder as he watches the tactical retreat.

 

He turns to find a very tall, very muscular, very good looking man staring down at him

 

“Do all of you guys _have_ to look like superheroes? I mean, do they screen for that somehow before they accept you into the program? I swear, I’m going to need a chiropractor by the end of the night,” Danny cracks, craning his neck to look up at the man.

 

“Sorry… not much I can do about that,” he grins, then sticks out his hand. “Lt. Commander Stone Archer.”

 

Danny _cannot_ stop himself from rolling his eyes at that. “Jesus, even your name…” Danny mutters and then stops and sighs, because really, there’s no point. “Lieutenant Danny Williams,” he offers, taking the proffered hand. “Nice to meet you.”

 

“You too… Are you military?” he cocks his head.

 

“No… Honolulu Police Department,” Danny clarifies.

 

“Oh. Well, I’m on my way out, but I just wanted to come over and tell you that I really admire what the two of you are doing.”

 

“Oh?” Danny answers. He’s spent the last 12 hours learning that some of these guys will let you think they support you and then come back with aggressive antipathy; he doesn’t want to say too much until he’s sure where this guy stands.

 

“Yeah. Coming out like that has to be about the most difficult thing there is for people in the military.”

 

“Not so easy for a cop, either,” Danny points out.

 

He nods. “I have no doubt. I meant no offense.”

 

Danny scrutinizes him, deciding that he is indeed sincere and this isn’t some sort of trap. “None taken,” he eventually says, and they both relax.

 

“Are you a friend of Steve’s?” Danny asks, then. “Did you serve with him?”

 

“No, we never served together, but I know him by reputation. He’s a damn fine SEAL.”

 

Danny nods and can’t help smiling at that… he’s always been proud of Steve, but it gives him a shiver of pleasure to hear people talk about how much they admire his partner.

 

“But I don’t think anything he’s ever done in the field can match the courage he’s shown by coming out and showing up here this weekend… with you,” he looks at Danny pointedly.

 

Danny is startled by that statement and it shows on his face.

 

“I wish I had his courage…” the Lieutenant Commander adds, looking across the room toward where Steve is standing talking to the young guy Danny met at dinner – John Connors, he thinks.

 

“Excuse me?” Danny says, wondering how any SEAL could ever question their courage.

 

He flicks his eyes back down at Danny. “My partner has been asking me to come out since the repeal of DADT, but…”

 

“You’re _gay?_ ” Danny blurts, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice, then realizing his faux pas and looking around to make sure no one heard him.

 

Archer stands a little straighter. “Yes.”

 

“And no one here knows?” Danny looks around at the crowd again.

 

“Well… I guess you know, now…” he answers with a nervous laugh.

 

“Uh…” Danny has no idea how to respond to that but then he registers the uneasy look on Archer’s face. “Hey, look… Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. Trust me, I know how hard it is for you guys…”

 

“Thanks,” Archer answers and Danny can see his relief.

 

“Hey, uh, let me give you my card,” Danny says, pulling one from his wallet. “If you ever want to talk, you can give me a call – or Steve. He’s been in your shoes, so… I know he’d be happy to talk to you.”

 

Archer takes the card and slips it into his pocket. “Thank you. I... I appreciate that,” he says looking sincerely touched at Danny’s gesture. “Listen, I have to go, but I really did just want to come over and tell you how much I admire the both of you. Good luck, Lieutenant. Maybe I’ll see you next year?”

 

“It’s Danny, and, yeah. I hope so. Nice to meet you, Stone.” Danny says, and the other man gives a small wave as he walks away.

 

Once he’s gone, Danny’s eyes sweep across the room searching the crowd until he spots Steve, who has moved closer to the bar with three other SEALs. He stands for several minutes, uninterrupted, just watching Steve as he talks and laughs easily with his friends. Despite the lingering tension that their presence seems to create, Steve appears to be completely at ease and comfortable in his own skin. Danny takes a sip of his beer and can’t help smiling at how much Steve has changed in the last few years – and then he takes stock and realizes that maybe he has, too.

 

That thought is just taking root in his mind, when Danny hears someone talking next to him and he turns, still distracted by his thoughts of Steve. “Sorry, what?” Danny asks, coming face to face with yet another gigantic hulk of a man.

 

“I said, so, you’re McGarrett’s boyfriend?” the slightly skeptical – though Danny thinks not necessarily hostile – giant repeats.

 

He flicks a quick glance back over at ‘his boyfriend’, who happens to look up at that same second and sees Danny watching. Steve flashes a brilliant, genuine smile and Danny holds up his beer bottle to him. His partner returns the gesture and then reluctantly tugs his eyes away and back to the conversation at hand. Danny has difficulty tearing his eyes off of Steve as well, but when he finally does, he gives the giant in front of him a huge grin.

 

“Hi. Danny Williams, nice to meet you,” he says for what feels like the thousandth time today and sticks out his hand. And then Danny sucks in a breath, and takes a leap of faith, and for the first time that day, he adds, “And, uh… it’s fiancé, actually.”

 

 

END 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N (1) So! First I have say – again – thank you all so much for reading this fic! I truly, honestly, thought this story would be little-read and panned by those who bothered, so the warm response you’ve given it has flabbergasted me. Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading and leaving kudos and comments – I am sincerely humbled by your kindness and encouragement.
> 
> (2) I can’t believe I wrote that sex scene the way I did – LOL! It’s usually one of my ‘icks’, which, if you happen to have read my 30 day fic, you might remember that 'coming on your partner’s body' is one of Danny’s ‘sex-don’ts’ … I’m not sure what came over me! (no pun intended!) ; ) 
> 
> (3) Speaking of which - sorry – I couldn’t resist the reference to the Pretzel from that 30 day fic…
> 
> (4) I’m going to take a break for a while, I think… this one was pretty exhausting to tackle and when I started, I actually thought I’d be done by early/mid-August. So, I’m going to relax and catch up on my reading and enjoy the start of S6. But I’m thinking that in a little while, I’ll post some of the outtakes from this fic… I have a few scenes that I drafted some text for but they just never made their way into the final version - but they have not been edited AT ALL and they need polishing before I’d post them, so it won't be right away. Some of you have asked about specific scenes you’d like to see and since I did draft some of them, I thought I’d go ahead and post them. So that'll be a Part 2 of a series for this fic., I think. And so, I guess if there’s any particular timestamp scene you were itching to see but that I didn’t include, you could pitch it and if something comes to me, I’d write it up… no promises though. (I did sort of promise KippyVee that I’d write up Danny letting Steve know that he’s ready to say ‘yes’… so, that one will come eventually…)
> 
> (5) You can find me on tumblr at teeelsie-posts.tumblr.com. Feel free to send messages or asks over there!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and if you're inclined to tell me what you think - love it or hate it - I'm always very happy to hear it.


End file.
